Tree recommendations

[peachgreen]

The major Christmas tree sellers have some great Black Friday deals on – even better than last year’s January sales – and I’m getting tempted. So I have some questions for you, oh Mumsnet hive…

Are Balsam Hill trees really worth it?
Is pre-lit a true game-changer?
6ft or 7ft for a standard size house?
What’s the best tree “type” – fir, spruce, etc?

If anyone has any recommendations of where to look, please do shout – ideally I want pre-lit multicoloured (option to switch to white a bonus). Oh, and alas, a real tree isn’t an option because of allergies. And also small dog.

Yes they absolutely are

Are Balsam Hill trees really worth it?
Is pre-lit a true game-changer?
6ft or 7ft for a standard size house?
What’s the best tree “type” – fir, spruce, etc?

It depends on what you're looking for... I find BH trees too dense for my liking, I want to get lights and decorations right in, like two per branch minimum but preferably more and down to the trunk. It doesn't look like you can achieve that much from Balsam Hill trees because there's so many branches. They're also unnaturally regular looking, although I'd assume you might be able to arrange the branches to look a little irregular if you wanted?

I didn't find pre-lit worked well for me because in the third year, the lights simply stopped working (the second year they flickered a lot which was annoying). So from then on I just put whatever lights I wanted on, which was nicer because some years I wanted colours, some years a nice warm white. It was nice not having to wrestle with getting light strings on and off, so it might be worth it to you (if the lights don't fail, that is!) if that's an aspect you really loathe.

Our tree is 7ft, we put it in the bay window and bend down the branches that are against the low wall of the bay. They don't get seen by anyone so no point putting lights or decorations on them. The tree topper is very close to the ceiling of the bay, so maybe worth finding out how high your ceiling is where you're going to site the tree if it looks lower than average? If ours wasn't tucked in the bay there would be loads of head height.

Tree type depends on what you like. I don't know what ours is supposed to be either, it's frosted with fake snow that falls off every year and is a pig to vacuum up and I still find sequins from it around the skirting boards in July March.

I don't think you can get pre-lit multi-coloured, I haven't seen any. Hopefully if they do exist someone can provide a link. Coloured lights these days tend to be LEDs which aren't quite the same as the filament bulb type, the red tends to dominate rather over the other colours. The sets we had in the 70s were definitely more pastel than modern ones, no idea why but I loved them. Last year I had four shades of "white" on ours, a coppery white, antique gold, champagne gold and cool white which twinkled, I think I'll be putting those back on this year.

Totally worth it, they soon pay for themselves. Mine will be on season number 6 this year and its as good as new. 7ft for me, standard height ceiling gives a kittle room above my angle toppers head. Pre lit. Thing of beauty

We put real tree but used to have artificial one, I loved it, very convenient. Ours was much narrower then a real one and it’s the main bonus imo.

We have real trees downstairs but the children have a balsam hill tree in their rooms. They're quite realistic so I think it was worth the slightly higher price.

Absolutely worth it . We’ve got 2 , both pre lit and they are better than anything I’ve seen in a store or garden centre .

Definitely worth it. Especially if you buy when there's a sale.

My parents have had one for a few years and I brought one for my place on September can't wait to put it up

Balsam Hill have lighting option with both coloured and white lights.

I also don't really like the Balsam Hill trees. They don't look realistic to me. Too uniform and dense. All of them are just triangular. Not a natural shape no matter how realistic the branches are.

I like Christmas Tree World's Ultra mountain pine best. I also have a nice one from Mr. Christmas and a Kaemingk one. All are much nicer shapes to me.

Shop around is my advice.

I've never had a pre lit tree. Don't like the idea of it. I like to change it up. And prefer old fashioned incandescent bulbs over leds. Especially in coloured lights.

Thanks so much all! In the end I went for a cheap(er) one from We Are Christmas and an expensive one from Balsam Hill so I shall report back on which is better!

For the cheaper one, I went for one with dual lights. I had to go narrow as we have the height but not the floor space:

https://www.werchristmas.co.uk/products/pre-lit-mixed-pine-natural-bark-multi-function-christmas-tree-with-multi-dual-led-lights-5ft?variant=39758065303623

For the more expensive one, I'm deciding between these two – votes welcome! Balsam Hill do do dual but it's a lot more expensive, so I decided to go for just warm white and then I can add old-fashioned coloured lights if I want to!

https://www.balsamhill.co.uk/p/silverado-slim-artificial-christmas-tree?sku=2809122

https://www.balsamhill.co.uk/p/bh-norway-spruce-artificial-christmas-tree?sku=2810172

(I really loved this one, but they only do it in 6ft or 7.5ft, annoyingly. I measured my room and 7ft is perfect, but 7.5ft would be too tall. https://www.balsamhill.co.uk/p/yukon-spruce-artificial-christmas-tree)

I prefer the Silverado , but it depends what look you want . Do remember with BH trees that there is a lot of fluffing and sorting particularly in the first year , it’s not a case of put it up and decorate .

i am a fan of Christmas Tree World trees, because they are as realistic as Balsam Hill, but far cheaper. CTW does not need a Facebook Page similar to “Balsam Hill Complaints’ . If you read the posts there you will be put off BH as the after sales service seems to be appalling and the pre-lit versions seem to fail remarkably quickly with a virtually useless warranty.

I’ve never had a problem with customer service and I’ve sent things back and had other correspondence with them . I’ve also got prelit trees that are 6+ and still fine . People rarely go on SM to compliment things , it’s the same with lots of products .

@ppeachgreen I vote Silvardo!

Love my BH tree, had it a few years.

I would suggest watching their video on how to fluff the branches properly because it shows what people think fluffing is and what really fluffing it looks like. I have bought two cheaper trees for the children from another company and the not so great quality really shows, even PE tipped it is nothing compared to the BH. It feels very sparse.

The one thing I do is to let down one layer of branches and fluff those because you have full access to it rather than fighting with the layer above. I also paid close attention to the photos on the BH website to recreate the branch look of my tree. I do not do this alone it is a family effort so easy when there are 4 of us doing it.

Look for a Christmas tree with a high percentage of PE tips. The more PE tips the better. PVC tips are the tips that are tinsel-like.

Pre-lit trees aren’t great because the lights often don’t last long. When researching trees I joined some Balsam Hill Complaints groups on Facebook and most of the complaints were to do with pre-lit trees and how the lights don’t last long and how it’s difficult to find bulb replacements. This could happen with any tree.

It’s worth the effort to use lights of your own, and it also gives you more control over how your tree will end up looking. I use 70m 1000 warm white lights for my 7ft tree and it’s just how I like it. I follow the method that is shown in this . We tried 50m 750 lights at first but ran out. 1000 was perfect.

Balsam Hill do realistic trees but even during big sales the prices are quite high. For example, the 7ft Silverado Slim which is 65% PE 35% PVC was £249 during Black Friday.

I like The White Stores because they clearly state the percentage of PE tips for all the trees on their site. With Balsam Hill I had to request the information and sometimes they refused. With other places it was also difficult to find out the percentages.

I ended up getting the 7ft Englemanns Spruce because it is 80% PE and has a nice “spiky” silhouette. It looked even better in person than on the website. It was £195 after discounts, but it is now sold out.

I also bought Winter Fir Scentsicles to make it smell real. I tried the ‘O Christmas Tree’ scent too but didn’t like the smell at all. Winter Fir is the best. The pack says to use all 6 but we used 2 and it’s lovely and strong.

I looked at some trees from WeRChristmas and Christmas Tree World but didn’t like them. I tried the Nordmann Fir from WeRChristmas and it had too many PVC branches. Same with the mountain pine trees from Christmas Tree World.