I apologize to all you people out there who use real trees for Christmas; but I’m a fake tree kind of guy.
What’s your experience with a pre-lighted Christmas tree? I’m thinking about replacing my really old fake tree with a new; pre lighted one. I’ve heard if you get a good one, they’re pretty nice.
Yay! Yeah! and Yes! I really love my pre-lighted tree. I loved using a real one, but two peeing housecats and a pine needle allergy preclude that for me. (I even have to have my kids and husband handle the oldest ornaments - the ones that used to be one real trees, or I get hives and my breathing gets difficult.) And the thought of killing a tree just so I could look at it for a few weeks bothered me. So artificial it is! But yes, pre-lighted is good. It saves a step or three in setting it up, and the lights are much more evenly distributed than I was ever able to get them. No more “fill in this part here” or “is that a bare spot up there?”
By the way, if you miss the scent of a real tree, you can buy real essential oil of pine (steam distilled from the fresh twigs and needles, not turpentine from the resin!) or juniper online and put a couple of drops on a tissue and tuck it in the treestand. I hate the synthetic stuff, but the real stuff smells like real tree.
My christmas tree is a fibre-optic jobby, that has kind of a “swirly” pattern through the lights. I love it, and it means I didn’t have to buy extra lights and set them up. Even without decorations it’s ready to go in a few moments.
My mom has a pre-lit one now that there’s no kids to make decorate the tree. It’s beautiful, IMHO.
I always go for the real tree BUT my best friend has the pre-lighted Christmas tree. It’s simple set up for the holidays and easy to put away when the season is over. It also looks quite real and very pretty.
I succumbed to the artificial tree a number of years ago, because we were always out of town for Christmas, visiting family. Then we had a kid, and when he got old enough, he wanted to have the tree up and decorated a bit earlier than would have been practical with a live tree.
We went the pre-lighted tree route about four years ago, I think. Last year was the first year we had any “Oh, crap – that whole tier of lights is out!” issues, but we solved them. I HATE stringing lights. I HATE removing and storing the lights in the anal-retentive manner (I am my father’s daughter) that allows next year’s light stringing to be merely annoying, rather than crazy-making.
I have never been a white lights kind of person, and I really wish I could have found a pre-lighted tree with colored (but not blinking!) lights. Oh well. You can’t always get what you want.
But if you try sometime…
I’ve had mine for 7 years now, with no problems. It’s so super-easy, you just pop three pieces together, plug that sucker in, and drink yer eggnog! LOVE it. The best $100 I ever spent. Can’t recommend it enough. I wish there were fake pre-lighted bushes for your outside- I would buy them.
I miss the real tree, but it’s a fire hazard, expensive, I don’t have kids and we “do Christmas” at my mom’s house, etc. It’s pre-lit and I love it. Completely awesome. Anyway, Dad “does the lights” and he doesn’t live here.
I love my pre-lit tree! Stringing lights was a daunting task for me, I would sloooowly cross the room to make sure there were no ‘bear holes’. It took me a few hours to get it just right.
We bought a 6.5 foot tree with lights in the medium range. Thats another great thing about the pre-lit as well, you have a choice of a little, medium, or a lot of lights. We chose the clear light version, and I’m very happy with it. Though I wish we would have waited for a pre-lit LED tree. But for the month and a half that we have it up, I hope we’re not using too much more electricity.
We bought ours at Hobby Lobby at 40% off, not a bad deal overall. It was cheaper than any of the sales that were around at the time, so shop around. (This week Hobby Lobby has their trees 30% off.) We’ve also got one of those fiber optic trees for the novelty ornaments, it’s my tacky tree, we love it. But I’m glad that it’s only three foot tall too.
Never had a real tree in my adult life. Jim and I discussed it a long time ago, and we figured fake was the best way to go. No particular reasons though.
Go for it! But make sure you see it - or rather, listen to it - in a quiet environment. Because some of them have very noisy motors or fans. Either the one that rotates the tree, or the fan that cools the bulb that lights the fibre-optics.
Prelit trees are great! Last year we took ours from boxed to fully set up and decorated within an hour. Compare that to the day long tree event that my mom went through when I was a kid and I’ll take the prelit route every time.
I love mine, and I was very unsure about the concept when I first got it. It’s so easy to set up. I do find myself handling it a little more carefully when I take it down and pack it up after the season. I still love a real tree, but figure I can enjoy those when visiting other people’s houses.
I know I had this fear that it would be the kind of thing where the lights go on the fritz after a year or two, and then I’d be left with an unlit tree that I needed to put lights on – but it’s been going for about five years with no problem, and at this point, you can find them on sale so easily that even if it did break down, I’d feel I had gotten my money’s worth and be okay with replacing it.
If allergies are a factor, I’d mention that some people (like me) are also triggered by the oil of pine – some aren’t, but you might want to give it a trial run.
How do you guys feel about rotating Christmas trees?
Slightly nauseated.
Rotating trees, to me, belong in huge department stores not before Thanksgiving, with wide eyed moppets dressed in fleecy hoods tilting their heads back in awe as plastic bits of fake snow slowly drift down behind their heads and the opening bars of The First Noel swell softly in the background. In other words, in movies and romantic paintings. Not in my living room.
IOW: Tacky.
Definitely Yeah!!
Time spent setting up unlit artificial tree and lights: 3 hours
Time spent setting up nifty pre-lit tree: 30 min
Makes Christmas decorating so much more enjoyable! I actually picked mine up in the after Christmas sales a couple years ago for less than $20.
I’m a real tree snob for my own home (and am salivating this year now that we’re in a house with a huge great room and 10’ ceilings) but my MIL has a prelit tree and it’s beautiful. She says it is simple to assemble. My parents inherited an unlit fake tree for free, but now it’s too tall for their new house. I believe they’re going pre-lit for the next one. Who wants the hassle of both assembling the tree *and * stringing the lights?
My husband feels strongly that light stringing is men’s work. I don’t argue with him. I strung them one year and was roundly criticized both for my unorthodox wire winding tactics and uneven light placement.
A friend of ours bought one last year for his first Christmas in his new house - said the damn thing was too bright and unscrewed some of the bulbs. But he’s an idiot. And besides, he broke up with his girlfriend and left the house, hence the tree, so this year he’s sol.
ANYWAY - we always use a real one cause Mr2U loves putting 10,000+ lights on it (it’s our primary heat source during the winter - Nicor is too expensive) but my MIL has a prelit one and it works perfectly for her. Plus, it’s pretty. She got it dirt cheap at Home Depot - they go on sale RIGHT before Christmas.
No, it doesn’t rotate or anything. It just lights up.
Hey, WhyNot, ever seen one of THESE bad boys?? 
Well, it’s not quite as bad as this! Or how about this tasteful little item here?
When I was in Michael’s (craft store) last week with a friend, I had to bodily drag her away from the four foot feather tree. And when I say “feather”, I don’t mean the style “feather tree” like in your link. I mean, a four foot “tree” made of bird feathers. Big ones. Dyed neon pink. Unfortunately, they don’t have a link to it on their website, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one.
Gads! My mother had one of those in our basement rec room every Christmas for years! She actually liked it! :eek:
We had one of those when I was a kid. It’s awesome!
