Residents are already rockin’ around the Christmas tree with some vendors reporting a marked hike in sales of the festive trees despite the flagging economy.

In the first week of December — traditionally the busiest week for Christmas tree buying — importers said sales have been strong across the Island.

Lindo’s supermarkets in Devonshire and Warwick have seen their 250-plus Quebec Balsam firs sell out twice as fast as normal.

“We opened at eight o’clock on Tuesday and we sold our last two trees this morning,” said the Devonshire branch manager, Marco Zanol. “For us to sell out within two days was very good. Normally it takes us four days or so.”

The Bermuda Sailing Association has almost sold all the 1,100 trees it shipped in for its annual Christmas tree fundraiser.

All of the money raised from the tree sales go to the Bermuda Youth Sailing campaigns.

Coordinator Peter Bromby said sales were up around 18 percent compared to last year and the last container should find its way off the dock by this morning at the latest.

“Everything’s going well,” he said, “But we still have a few left.”

This year residents can expect to pay about $100 or higher for a Fraser fir or balsam over six feet, with prices starting at around $68 for the four to six-footers.

Nurseries, supermarkets and gas stations are among those that have shipped in trees, along with more than a dozen independent vendors selling by roadsides and other locations.

Sousa’s Landscape said sales had been similar compared to last year when they sold all of their 1,100-odd Fraser and Balsam fir trees from Quebec.

“The economy was a concern, so we didn’t do any more [than last year] because we didn’t want to be left with items that are basically no good after Christmas,” said garden centre manager Lindsay Sousa.

As for diseased trees, Ms Sousa said she’s had two trees confiscated so far, with two more shipments expected in by this weekend and the next.

“The majority of the time we have very clean trees. Our suppliers are very good at spraying the trees to keep on top of scale [parasites] and stuff like that,” she said.

“We had two trees confiscated this year. Quite a few people have had trees confiscated this year, actually. I think they took about eight last week from various suppliers.”