My 'pet hate' about Christmas trees (other people's)!

[BillHadersNewWife]

I have nothing against artificial trees...we have one ourselves...have done for two years now...what I keep seeing though, is pics of people's beautifully decorated artificial trees with BARE STANDS!

Why?? Do people just look at the ugly bases and think "Oh yes, that looks lovely!" ??

Or have they not noticed it's detracting from the rest of their efforts? You don't have to buy a tree skirt...you can just ruffle some fabric or tulle or hessian or even paper around it! Or hide the base with gifts...why have the stand on show?

Petty yes. But genuinely curious too.

I have a bare stand but it's not really visible because of where the Xmas tree is next to the sofa, so for me the base is irrelevant

You can't see the stand when there are presents under it.

Meh, it's an artifical tree, I'm not going to try and pretend it's real.

Nooo it's nor about pretending it's real! it's about finishing it...

I can’t say I’ve ever noticed, dazzled as I am by our strange collection of decorations gathered over the years. I really wouldn’t notice it about someone else’s tree either - though I did comment on the fashion I see n photos everywhere for sort of wicker basket containers. There’s so much going on with the trees that ruffling up hessian or whatever is going to just add to the clutter.

I don't see a problem with a base to be honest I think a "skirt" on a tree looks more odd.

I think this year was the first year I thought “hmm could really do with a skirt” but I’m broke AF so won’t be getting one. There’ll be presents going under there soon enough anyway.

Not that we get any visitors anyway 🤷‍♀️

I don’t like characterless trees

I haven't got a skirt for mine...mine just has a few metres of red fabric wrapped round it.

Maybe they don’t mind the base, given artificial trees are quite obviously exactly that...artificial. I often think the fussy ‘skirts’ look messy and crap. In fact I was looking at the various skirts in Next yesterday and thinking how rubbish they were. They didn’t even look good on the display. Very tacky imo.

We always have a real tree in a big red tin bucket. If we had an artificial one I think I’d just leave it on its stand as well.

You have to go delving under the branches to see our base. I don't think (m)any people will be doing that kind of thing! 🤷‍♀️

People do things differently to each other at Christmas shocker!

Yes! Totally agree. All that time and money spent on adorning each branch and then the bottom is so disappointing!

But tree skirts are so horrible and weird.

Besides which half the point of having a Christmas tree is to put presents under it, you don't want to take up present space with some awful naff decoration.

The horror of the bare tree stand is as nothing to the clinical eerie morgue-at-3-a.m. ambience created by blue "Christmas" lights.

I have a feather boa wrapped around mine - is that allowed?

I suspect that people leave it because soon enough there will be presents under there.

I don’t like the look of a bare base either. We have a wicker basket thing for ours.

We just wind a piece of tinsel round ours (it's a fairly small tree). However it is a black tree with blue lights so we are committing other tree related sins.

I have to disagree, I think skirts, swathes of fabric etc look weird, a plain stand looks nicer.

I’ve got a load of tinsel which I put over the base. I can’t put any presents out until Christmas Eve because we’ve got a dog who loves presents

I have a tree skirt.

What I detest is blue Christmas lights. Tacky tacky tacky.

I love blue Christmas lights.

My pet hate is cold white lights, I don't mind warm white, although they are a bit dull, coloured lights are so much more Christmassy. I don't like colour schemed trees either.

Blue Christmas lights are awful. Especially when idiots put them on the flashiest setting in the window so you think there's an emergency vehicle close by when you're driving in the dark.

Blue lights
Cold white lights
Any sort of flashing lights
And yes, agree about bare stands. Our tree goes in a big black bucket of wet gravel, so the final decorating job is to wrap some red paper around it.

I understand people saying it doesn't matter because there will be presents around it, but do you put presents there as soon as the tree is up? And take it down first thing on Boxing Day?

Our presents don't go round the tree until Christmas Eve - assuming I can remember where I hid them all!

Agree on the cold white lights. Yet it is always harder to find the warm ones.

I bought new outdoor lights and had to go to three different places before I Could get three boxes of the warm ones (and this was tesco😊).