Austin Optimist Club Christmas Tree Lot

My GF and I spent a while looking through trees and found a lot of good options. Trees were solid and the staff was super helpful. Not to mention they helped load in on the car. Proceeds go to charity which is good stuff. We will be back next Christmas.
Cheers!

We told the man working here what we were looking for and our budget, and he immediately took us to a tree hidden down one of the rows still bundled and promised us it was the prettiest tree they had for that price range. He tied it securely on top of our SUV and told us to come back if it wasn’t the best tree we have ever had. We opened it up when we got home and this tree is absolutely the most beautiful, and probably cheapest, tree we have ever gotten. It’s great to see a business take this much pride in what they do, we will be back next year.

Shopping local at the Optimist Club’s Christmas tree lot tonight. Great selection, great service, for a great cause! It feels good to know that 100% of what we spent on our tree will go to charities right here in Austin, Texas that serve the youth of our amazing city. Highly recommend shopping local with purpose!

I found this location after looking extensively online for the best christmas tree! Not only are you helping a good cause, you’re also getting a selection of multiple types of trees to choose from. I walked out of there with a Fraser Fir that not only was beautiful and smelled wonderful, it was healthy for almost two months without losing leaves.
I’ll be going back there in a week or so to get mine for this year.

This place is a bit pricier than some of the other Christmas tree lots in town, but they also clearly had the best selection and quality by the time we made it out to find a tree. The people were also very friendly and helpful; much more so than the other places we looked. The tree we got is gorgeous and has the nice, fat look that my wife wanted as opposed to a scrawnier, skinny tree.
We got a 7 – 8 foot tree and it ran about $ 100.

Best tree lot in Austin! Very reasonable prices, fresh trees, great selection, and every helpful staff. AND it’s for a good cause! We’ll never go anywhere else for our tree.

My husband and I went and found the perfect little tree here today. Very reasonable pricing, our 5 ft tree was $ 39 and that was not the cheapest for that size. The man who helped us, Carlos, was super nice and helpful and even carved a cross into a tree stump for us to take home without us even asking.
This place really carries the spirit of Christmas not only in the friendliness of the staff/​volunteers but also in the fact that they give away 100% of their profits to charity. We will definitely be coming back here again next year!

Why would you go anywhere else? Friendly, full-​service, good location. I don’t always buy real trees, but when I do… I prefer this lot. Stay jolly, my friends!

The best tree lot in the city and the proceeds go to a great cause.

I’ve been purchasing my Christmas tree here for many years not only to get a fine tree but also to support the Optimists and the Boy Scouts. The lot has been at this corner of San Gabriel and Lamar (across from Pease Park) for as long a I can remember.
They often are one of the last places selling trees long after the big box stores and out of town Xmas tree lots have dried up.

My entire childhood was spend with a very sad, bedraggled fake Christmas tree because of my Mom’s allergies, so the first time I was on my own, I got the biggest, baddest tree (8 ½ feet! I was luckily living in an apartment with vaulting ceilings) I could find and decorated the crap out of it.
And that tree was found at the Austin Optimist Club tree lot.
I’ve since moved into smaller and smaller apartments and had scale back on the size of my trees, but I’ve never stopped going to the Optimist Club. They are some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met, they have lovely Christmas trees, and the money goes to local youth charities. They’re not the cheapest trees out there, but I feel good about where my money is going. They give you plenty of room to roam around and pick out a tree. I’m weird about overzealous salespeople, so it’s nice to walk around and not have someone breathing down my neck (although one year I did have an EXTREMELY eager young Boy Scout trailing after me who was a touch obnoxious, but he got cute points for being so very excited about «helping» me pick out a tree). And it never fails that as soon as I’m positive I’ve found my tree, a very helpful man magically pops up and drags it up to the front. They cut off the end of the trunk for you and any branches that might be in the way of your tree stand while you pay at the little booth. FYI, when I first started coming, they didn’t take credit cards, and I’m not sure if that’s changed. I always write a check. Once you’ve paid, they haul your tree over to your car, tie it up, and send you off on your way. Let the Christmas cheer begin!

It’s been a long time since I had a real X-​mas tree in my house, and though this one didn’t come from the Optimist Club Tree lot, the last one did. Here’s what I wrote about it at the time…
We (and that’d be Mr. Kevin N. and Myself) bought it at The Optimists Club tree lot. The trees themselves were less than optimistic. They were all dead. Some more than others, to be sure, but they were all dead. No replanting for these guys. They were all just standing around, dying slowly and thinking to themselves, «Optimists? My trunk! This is exploitation! I need a good lawyer…» We got a good tree. His name is Andrew, and he’s wearing my cowboy hat, for now.

I thought about picking up a tree at HEB this year. They were a little cheaper. But they’re all already untied. How am I supposed to put a fully open tree in a Cutlass. Not everyone in the world drives a SUV, boneheads.
So I went back down the the little lot on Lamar. It’s a charitable cause and a good selection of trees. Like the lot at St. Louis Catholic on Burnet, they have some very high dollar trees. Unlike that lot, you can buy a tree there for under $ 20 if you don’t mind a shorty. I spent $ 29 on a six foot scotch pine. The nice young man sawed off the end, put it in the trunk, and tied down my trunk for me. This is my third tree from them, and next year I won’t bother looking anywhere else.

We each have our rituals, especially this time of year: one of mine involves hitting up the Optimist Tree Lot for a little Christmas Tree shopping. Proceeds here go to benefit local children-​specific charities, and that feels worthwhile, and I’ve been pretty lucky and come away with some really great Christmas trees over the years. Not a Charlie Brown special in the bunch.
This year we happened in late one night, holiday spirit in tow, and found one that really seemed to hit the mark: full bodied, fluffy almost, and it wasn’t until I got it home that I realized there were a couple of things I didn’t know were there (couldn’t see in the dark, as it were). First, a small birds nest on one of the branches. Kind of cool actually: considered keeping it even after the ornaments were up… and, well, what appeared to have been (at one time) a wasp’s nest. That one freaked me out. I put the tree back out on my porch, sprayed it with wasp killer to be on the safe side, and called the lot back to express concern.
The next day my phone rings (they were closed by the time I had called) and there’s a voice on the other end of the line returning my inquiry: he suggested that we ‘reach in there and pull it out’ and ultimately, with the use of some ninja moves and garden tools, we chipped it out of the tree just fine. Nary a wasp to be seen. Except for those who may have been shopping that day. Happy holidays, kids.