Kelowna Christmas tree farm has several signs stolen

Photo: Hall Road Christmas Tree Farm

It appears the Grinch paid a recent visit to a Kelowna Christmas tree farm run by three teenage siblings.

The Hall Road Christmas Tree farm has been run by the Rempels – 18-year-old Kale, 16-year-old Jenae and 15-year-old Miles – for the past four years. After the record-breaking heat wave and drought this past summer, the teens lost a number of their trees, and Sunday morning, they woke to find several of their signs had been stolen.

“Because it's snowed, we just went around to quickly brush the snow off the signs, but there were no signs, they were mostly gone,” said father Lowell Rempell.

“We found one that was thrown behind a bush, but the other ones, unfortunately, went missing ... it's so frustrating.”

Out of their 16 custom-designed signs, Lowell estimates they've lost about eight.

“These kids work so hard all year on this farm, the trimming and doing all the stuff, and I could see the wind just sort of taken out of their sails,” Lowell said. “They were pretty bummed this morning.”

While the Rempells usually open their tree farm over two weekends in December, they only opened for this weekend, after losing about 30 per cent of their trees to the extreme heat this past summer.

“We all lost quite a few trees this year, so I think there's a bit of a shortage,” Lowell said.

But the Rempells still ended up selling about 130 trees on Saturday, and more were sold Sunday.

“It's just such a sort of a magical thing [at the tree farm] with the snow and everything else and the kids,” Lowell said.

Despite the setback, the Rempells plan to have their sales back up and running for the 2022 Christmas season.

Photo: Lowell Rempell

One of the stolen signs