Selecting the right Christmas tree to make your home look festively fabulous can be a battle between head and heart. A real tree can look and smell amazing, but with most trees needing daily maintenance and care, it can be a big undertaking during one of the busiest seasons of the year. The sheer volume of artificial Christmas trees available means that there’s a perfect option out there, just waiting for you to find it. So, where do you start?
Assess your space
A classic mistake when choosing either real or artificial Christmas trees is overestimating the space you have available. Having a beautifully round, full tree is great, but if it means that you need to rearrange your entire living space to accommodate it, and Nan has to sit on a beanbag when she visits for a glass of sherry, it probably isn’t the right fit for your room.
The perfect Christmas tree is one that enhances your space, rather than overwhelms it, so before you make moves to choose your tree, be sure to know where you want it to be placed and measure the space. If you’re still unsure, plan it out on the floor using a bedsheet to roughly represent the diameter of the tree you’d like to fill it — a physical representation can make it easier to visualise how the end result might look and if it really will fit in.
Fake or fir?
A real fir tree has a certain charm. The scent fills the air and is unmistakably Christmas. One drawback of real trees is that our centrally heated homes aren’t ideal environments for keeping them looking their best all the way through to the New Year. There are some varieties, such as the Nordmann Fir, which cope better with warmer, more humid homes, but they tend to be the more expensive varieties.
With careful tending and watering, you can minimise the amount of needles that drop and get embedded in the carpet and spread around the house, but who has time for that during the busy festive season?
With such a great array of artificial Christmas trees to choose from and the convenience they represent, that would always be my choice, for inside the house, at least.
How do you choose your artificial Christmas tree?
With your prime Christmas tree spot chosen, you’ll know, more or less, what size tree you’re looking for, so the rest should be straightforward. If you have plenty of time to browse, then I’d recommend heading to your nearest garden centre, B&M or The Range to see a few options in their Christmassy glory. Christmas decorations and trees usually land in stores just after Halloween, so there’s no need to leave it until the last minute.
If you’re more pressed for time, there are plenty of online options available to browse all year round. Choosing your tree from a computer screen is a little trickier than in person, but a good online retailer will provide height and diameter measurements, along with plenty of product pictures to help you make the right choice for your home.
If budget is a major consideration, then artificial Christmas trees can offer an enticing array that isn’t overly expensive. If you are looking at the lower end of the budget spectrum, then be sure to read the reviews before you decide, as you could find you’re disappointed with the result. In most cases, the old adage “you get what you pay for” holds true. For the best bargains, hold on for the Black Friday offers
in November. With retailers competing for your business with some great half-price deals, you’ll likely find you can get a much better tree for your original budget.
I have to confess that I absolutely love an artificial Christmas tree, and rather than one large tree, I have a number of smaller trees throughout the house. The range of shapes and sizes of artificial Christmas tree options on the market has made it such an easy choice.
The shape that works really well for us is the more compact pencil tree. We’ve had a pencil tree in our lounge for the last few years, and it always looks stunning — big isn’t always best, and with the right decoration, a slimmer tree can have just as much of an impact.
This year, I’ve revamped our dining room in time for the festive season, so it seemed fitting to add a tree, and a Christow Aspen Spruce pencil tree was perfect for the space. This particular tree is available at 5, 6 or 7ft tall, but for maximum impact, I opted for maximum height, and I regret nothing.
Just in case you do get over-excited and choose something that doesn’t suit IRL, check out the returns policy before you click. Distance selling regulations should mean returns are simple, but with proper planning, that shouldn’t be an issue.
Pre-lit, or not pre-lit, that is the question…
I firmly believe that one of the absolute blessings of an artificial Christmas tree is the pre-lit option. The Tangle Fairy is one of life’s great mysteries — how can a perfectly well-ordered set of lights become a tangled mess in the 11 months since you last saw it?! It might cost a few pounds more for prelit, but to avoid that hassle every year, and the time it takes to place the lights so there are no blank spots on the tree, I’m definitely in.
Many pre-lit trees have the bonus of not only being able to swap between coloured and white lights, but can also flash, twinkle or fade in and out, depending on the setting you select. This gives you the option to change up your colour scheme without needing to buy a new set of lights.
Whether you land on a 7ft, fully-bodied beauty, a 5ft flocked potted tree or an Instagram-worthy novelty that hangs from the ceiling, what’s important is that you and your family love it! Christmas comes but once a year, so crack out the tinsel and let the festivities begin!
