The history of surnames is an interesting thing. As we reach back through our family histories, we find that often simple translations can tell us exactly who our ancestors were or what their role in the community was. Names like Smith, Wright, or Cooper tell us the occupations of those from whom we descended. Designations like Johnson, O’Malley, or DeLorenzo explain from which location or clan a family derived. I went to elementary school with a white-blonde boy whose last name was Weiskopf, German for White Head. Made perfect sense. My father, who is lefthanded, bears the name Mancuso, which – unsurprisingly – is Italian for Left Hand. Also Italian, the name Colavita means Rich Life, and if you ever have the pleasure of meeting Dory and Bob Colavita, of Colavita Christmas Tree Farm, you’ll understand how fitting this name is, too.
Bob and Dory Colavita, of Colavita Christmas Tree Farm in Yardley (PA), stand on the 14 acre farm where they have worked and lived for 27 years. Photo by Kristina Gibb Photography.
In Italy, the Colavita family makes world renowned olive oil and pastas. In Yardley, they make Christmas memories for families hailing from towns across the region. Year after year, people come from all over to join the festivities and select their holiday tree from the farm, which stretches across 14 acres on Dolington Road.
The Colavitas don’t just grow trees here. They make their home on the farm, residing in a stunning, historic five bedroom house built in 1861 on land originally chartered by William Penn himself. Their eldest son and his family occupy a secondary residence on the property. There are also several outbuildings. Some are used for storing farm equipment. One serves as a holiday shop, filled with unique ornaments, Jim Shore collectables, and other items – including handmade candles scented with real evergreens, and handcrafted ornaments featuring the names and mascots of local schools. Another building is a workshop for Colavita “elves” who make holiday décor from tree trimmings – wreaths, crosses, swags, and more. The rest are where precut trees will be shopped by hundreds of December guests.
Views in and around the holiday shop. Photos by Kristina Gibb Photography.
Beyond the bustling center of the buildings, where the Christmas music plays and kids will find a mailbox for their letters to Santa, there are 9 acres dedicated to growing the most celebrated piece of our annual décor: Christmas trees. Perfectly shaped and lovingly raised, the trees reside in the field for anywhere from 7 to 12 years, depending on their variety and the desired height. Whatever your holiday visions, the Colavitas have the tree for you. The sky is the limit. Well, the ceiling, really, but you get the point.
Want something bushy and bright that will look perfect when adorned in strands of cranberries and white lights? They’ve got it. Maybe you’re picturing a 14 foot tall, frosty blue spruce standing in the two story windows of your vaulted family room. It’s there. Ever had a tree that smells like lemons? Colavita has them. Does your heart melt for that scraggly Charlie Brown tree? They can deliver. Literally, too. Colavita’s offers a delivery service for preselected trees.
That is the kind of service the Colavitas pride themselves on. They know it is something less tangible than their gorgeous variety of excellently groomed trees that makes tree hunting here so special for their guests.
Nine acres of the Colavita Christmas Tree Farm is dedicated to growing trees and welcoming guests. The remaining five serve three generations of the family that owns and works the farm. Photos by Kristina Gibb Photography.
“That’s one of the things they like here,” Bob smiles. “We are very friendly. We have a lot of kids from the high school that work. A lot of kids come back from college to work. We have one who is a chemist, he’ll come back and work. A kid who works with the FBI; he comes back and works. I have one kid who was here for 16 years… It’s nice because they come back. It’s a friendly face, and people will always remark how friendly our people are, how helpful they were.”
That friendly, helpful experience is what brings people back, often bearing gifts of their own for the Colavita family. Bob tells me how one family always brings cake. Another woman brings venison stew. A gentleman comes each year with coffee and donuts. These offerings warm the hearts of Bob and his staff, which is comprised as much of his own family as it is hired help that has become family. All of his adult children have a role in the business, and they will carry the torch, when Bob and Dory are ready to pass it along. Their eldest, who is also named Robert, is active on the farm daily. Their second son, Matt, is an attorney who advises on business and legal matters. Their youngest child and only daughter, Christin, runs the holiday shop; and their six grandchildren, who are all currently in college, also play parts on the farm.
Santa’s workshop. Well, it’s actually Bob’s desk, which sits in a small outbuilding on the farm. Photo by Kristina Gibb Photography.
“All the grandkids, when they were here, they all worked,” says Bob. “One worked in the store. My granddaughter loved to be outside and work with the trees…”
There is a glistening in his eyes when Bob talks about his family and their time on the farm. It is the unmistakable glimmer of pride, mixed with a bit of nostalgia. After all, he and Dory have been here for 27 years. They welcomed their first grandbaby living here, surrounded by the unique magic of a holiday tree farm. Here, among the evergreens, they have made a whole life – a rich life, filled with family, love, laughter, and joy.
Bob Colavita doesn’t claim to have the same magic as the Big Guy, but he certainly spreads his Christmas cheer, providing trees to shoppers from Black Friday through Orthodox Christmas in early January. Photos by Kristina Gibb Photography.
The business that accompanies that life means the Colavitas are touched by everyone who visits. Bob tells me story after story, as we walk through the fields. He interrupts the heartfelt tales of Christmases past and life on the farm to share the educational pieces. He tells me about two young girls who came for a tree and didn’t have enough money. He shrugged and took what they had, never counting it. Later, he thought perhaps the teen was caring for her young sister, and he wished he hadn’t taken any money at all. Intermittently, he stops to have me touch or smell, explaining the softness or rigidity or relating one aroma to another. He chuckles about playing peekaboo with a fox who was hiding behind a large fir one brisk morning, then explains why he brings in Fraser Firs from a small, family-owned farm high on a mountain in central Pennsylvania. (The famous firs prefer the more consistent temperatures of higher elevations.) He shows me ladybug eggs on a spruce, then laughs about a family contacting him because they found a praying mantis egg in their tree. “You better trim it and get it outside, or you’re going to have hundreds of baby praying mantis all over the house.”
They shake the trees, he explains, but the eggs are sticky. They don’t always come out. His crew scours the trees when they’re trimming, but they can’t see everything. Your home replicates spring conditions – a comfortable 70 degrees, so the developing critters think it is time to hatch. Bob recommends searching for anything his crew might have missed when you decorate. Most people don’t mind it, he explains. It comes with the territory. It is part of the charm of a real tree.
Trees, trees, and more trees. Bob grows all but one variety he sells. He loves to spend time in the field, caring for the trees, gardening, and observing the wildlife with which he shares the land. Photos by Kristina Gibb Photography.
Bird nests are the most welcome of the hidden extras associated with real trees. Usually, they come out when the tree is shaken by machine before being wrapped in net for its trip home. They’re good luck, Bob tells me. He finds the children to be most excited about them. When the family doesn’t want them, and if they’re in good condition, he will spray them with a lacquer to preserve them. Then, he decorates them and adds them to wreaths. His love and respect for nature is evident as we move around the farm. So is his background in Education.
A former teacher, Bob spent 40 years working in schools. He taught at the elementary level before becoming a reading specialist. Eventually, he moved on to teaching future educators – first, at community college, and later, at The College of New Jersey. He met his wife, Dory – short for Dorothea, teaching summer school. At the time, she was a history teacher. She moved from there into the corporate world, doing crisis response for Mobil Oil. She only shakes her head when I mention what terrible things she must have seen. “Awful,” she says, “but I enjoyed the work. I enjoyed everything I did.”
Having met working summer school more than 50 years ago, Bob and Dory were both teachers in New Jersey. Dory went on to do other things, but Bob remained an educator until he retired. Photo by Kristina Gibb Photography.
After her time in the corporate world, Dory went back to school to become a psychologist. She still works in this field, and in the ones among which she lives. She helps in the holiday shop and wherever else she is needed, and can often be found toiling in the couple’s extensive garden. In addition to the evergreens, there are fruit trees – apples, pears, peaches, and figs, all processed and stored for the family’s consumption. They also have a large vegetable garden. Peppers, tomatoes, squash, zucchini,… all the things you would expect in an Italian American kitchen, and much more. They keep bees and grow a variety of holiday trimmings, like holly and winterberry. They are visited by deer, coyotes, foxes, all kinds of small mammals, as well as a variety of birds, from owls and hawks to bluebirds and chickadees. Bob’s appreciation for these things is evident in the smile he gets when he gazes across the property. It is their own little slice of heaven, but, like most great things in our lives, it wasn’t in the plan.
“I like Christmas; I always did,” Bob says, but he had no ambition to own a Christmas tree farm. “I wasn’t looking for it. It just popped up.”
Peeking through what remains of an old dairy barn, burned by a serial arsonist in the 1950’s. Photo by Kristina Gibb Photography.
As their children were flying the nest they had made in Yardley borough, the couple was nearing retirement and wanted something more relaxed. The goals were more land and a view void of high tension lines. They didn’t have to move, and they were only willing to sell if they found the perfect spot. After one total miss, a property sitting almost directly under high-tension lines, their realtor brought them here – to the tree farm. Loving the property and realizing they could have just let the fields grow in, Bob decided to take on the challenge of running the farm. He learned everything there was to know about growing holiday trees. He joined associations, took classes, registered for various programs, and met other tree farmers. Eventually, he became President of the Bucks County Christmas Tree Growers Association. Today, he knows just about everything you could imagine (and much you never even considered) about growing evergreens. His fields are the proud fruit of that labor and his sense of adventure.
“Sometimes I see something, and I wonder if I can grow it here.” Bob’s willingness to experiment has paid off for visitors, rewarding them with a wide variety of trees to choose from.
Tools of the trade. Handsaws hang and wait for guests who prefer to select their own from the field. Pre-cut trees are also available. Photo by Kristina Gibb Photography.
“I like when they try something new,” he says. He helps them select what he thinks they’ll like, and, most often, he gets it right, as families return looking for the same tree they had last year. Bob doesn’t necessarily try to sell them on switching, understanding that if they really loved it, they’ll want it again. Years and crops vary, though. Trees are impacted by pests, weather, and disease. He does his best to maintain a consistent stock, but he knows better than to rely on nature to be in perfect sync with human expectations. So, he encourages his guests to come with an open mind each holiday season. He knows that no matter what, he and his team of dedicated elves will find you the perfect tree. That’s what they do.
From their opening on Black Friday through Orthodox Christmas, celebrated on January 6th, the Colavita family makes it their mission to make your holiday special. Sharing their love of the season, the warmth of their family spirit, and their knack for choosing the perfect centerpiece of your holiday, three generations of Colavitas deliver what their name guarantees: the rich life. Like Christmas itself, it is a life filled with joy, love, family, and the welcoming of guests, and it is certainly the life they are living.
Bob and Dory’s historic home, built in 1861, sits near the guest area of their 14 acre parcel. The property, originally chartered by William Penn, used to stretch all the way to the river. Photo by Kristina Gibb Photography.
The River Bridges 
0 comments on “Rich Life”