Consumer Critique: Nearly Natural Christmas Trees

 It might still be October, but here in Minnesota we got one of the biggest winter snowfalls we've had in years - and only part of it melted, plus we got even more snow over the weekend. If this keeps up, we are definitely going to have a white Christmas!

I love Christmas. I get really excited about decorating our house, and we are to the point where we almost have more ornaments than space. In fact, we've often put ornaments that can stand on their own in collections on shelves instead of hanging, because we don't have enough tree space. In our old house, we didn't have room for another tree, but now that we have a new house with its own music room, I can sort out all of my music ornaments and put them on their own tree for my students to enjoy.

There is sometimes a debate between real or artificial trees. Real trees to have that obviously real look, but they get expensive really fast, when a new tree needs to get bought every year. I don't mind artificial trees, and sometimes having a pre-lit one can be handy. We did get one tree that was pre-lit that was kind of a tangle of lights, but the tree that I got to try from Nearly Natural didn't have that problem. The lights were well-spaced, with enough slack in the wires to make it easy to work with, but not so much slack that they looked bad. The one unique part about it was that all three parts plug in to the main, so the cord does need to run up the tree.

There are a lot of tree options available, in many different sizes. I needed a small-ish tree that wouldn't take up too much space, but still be tall enough to put lots of ornaments on it, and this one is the perfect size. It has a slim fit, but a comfortable height. The company makes those space-saving trees with flat backs so they can go right up against the wall, so if you're really tight on space that's always an option.

Even though I didn't fluff the branches out all the way (I was just setting it up to take the pictures, not to leave up until Christmas) I can tell that it will look just fine once I take a little more time to fluff everything out. It was super easy to put together, and I'm very excited to decorate it for real this year for Christmas!