A New Jersey company built around the artificial tree.

National Tree Company is an artificial Christmas tree and seasonal décor business based in Cranford, New Jersey. Its corporate office and its US showroom are both in Cranford, according to the company’s website, which says the showroom is open by appointment. The trading name sits on a longer legal one: a December 2019 release from the investment bank GulfStar Group identifies the business as National Christmas Products, Inc., doing business as National Tree Company.

Accounts of the company’s age differ. A news release from Sun Capital Partners, dated 25 November 2019, says National Tree Company was founded by Sal Puleo, Sr. in 1990, and GulfStar’s release and a transaction note from the adviser Lincoln International also give 1990. The company’s own About page, read in October 2026, says National Tree Company has been designing artificial Christmas trees and seasonal décor for more than 60 years, and that it was founded as a family business in New Jersey.

The family remains central to how the business presents itself. Sun Capital’s 2019 release described National Tree Company as family-operated and said it was led by the founder’s three sons, Joe, Sal Jr. and Rich Puleo; GulfStar’s release quoted Joe Puleo as president. The company’s About page says the business is now “three generations deep”.

Trees first, then wreaths, garlands and scent.

The core of the range is the artificial tree, lit and unlit. The company’s website organises its trees by height, by lighting and by shape, from full trees to slim, pencil-slim and tabletop forms, and names its collections after real species and places, among them Dunhill Fir, Jersey Fraser Fir, Kingswood Fir and North Valley Spruce. GulfStar’s 2019 release described the product line as lifelike trees, wreaths, garlands, shrubbery and decorative accessories.

The company has pushed the range beyond December. Its About page says National Tree Company now offers wreaths, garlands and indoor and outdoor décor for other celebrated times of the year as well as Christmas, and its website carries seasonal sections for spring, autumn, Halloween, Easter and patriotic holidays. The company says its work has focused on more realistic designs and on time-saving features, with products meant to be easy to use.

Around the trees sits a long list of finishing pieces. The company’s online catalogue runs from tree toppers, ornaments, tree skirts and collars to stockings, pillows and throws, and its greenery section covers pre-lit and unlit wreaths and garlands in several lengths, hanging baskets, swags, teardrops, centrepieces and topiaries. Outdoors, it sells inflatable and yard decorations. Other collections take their names from trees, including Carolina Pine, Douglas Fir and Nordic Spruce, and there is a separate Tinsel Collection. The website also hosts assembly videos, instruction manuals and a product registration form, and says a digital copy of the sales receipt is needed to register a product.

Scent is the newest strand. The About page says Scentsicles has been part of the National Tree Company family since 2022, and presents it as a way to pair the company’s lifelike décor with true-to-nature scents.

Design and documentation.

Christmas decor and ornament brands occupy an unusual corner of the home trade. Their products are bought for a few weeks of the year but kept for many more, unpacked from the same boxes each December and often handed down within a family, so a name in this field is asked to stand for continuity as much as for novelty.

Much of the category leans on borrowed tradition: mouth-blown glass, carved figures, village scenes and old-fashioned lettering that point back to older European workshop traditions. Behind that look, the companies themselves may be family firms, importers, designers who work with makers elsewhere, or businesses that have changed owners several times, and the place a brand calls home is not always the place its pieces are made.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what a company says about itself — who founded it and where, who owns it now, where its pieces are produced and how its packaging and marks have looked over time — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A wholesaler that ships to other people’s shops.

Much of National Tree Company’s business happens behind other retailers’ names. Sun Capital’s 2019 release described it as an e-commerce wholesaler of seasonal and holiday décor with a particular focus on Christmas, with relationships with many popular online retailers. GulfStar’s release said its customers included large e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retailers in the United States and Canada, and described its work as spanning the design, procurement, sale, distribution and fulfilment of seasonal décor.

Ownership changed in 2019. Sun Capital Partners said on 25 November 2019 that one of its affiliates had completed the acquisition of National Tree Company, a control investment whose terms were not disclosed; GulfStar, which advised National Tree, said the transaction closed on 15 November 2019. Sun Capital’s co-chief executive Marc Leder said in the release that the firm would work with the Puleo family to grow the business, and managing director Matthew Garff pointed to its strengths in design, procurement and dropship fulfilment, in which orders placed with a retailer are shipped direct to the customer.

The deal was framed around growth. Sun Capital’s release said National Tree had the dropship capabilities and customer relationships to expand its product range both organically and through strategic acquisitions. GulfStar’s release said the company ran dedicated facilities and a growing third-party logistics network across North America, and quoted Joe Puleo describing the sale as a landmark transaction for the business and the chance to grow into new segments and new markets with a strong capital partner.

For a design guide, National Tree Company shows how a business that often sells through other storefronts can still build a recognisable name of its own, with collections named after familiar firs and spruces. Compare a fellow artificial-tree brand in our Balsam Hill brand guidelines and a fellow Christmas décor brand in our Kurt Adler brand guidelines. For this guide we use Fraser green, holly red and tinsel gold with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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