Are pre-lit Christmas Trees worth it?

[Nuts4Disney]

shannonandtom Thanks so much for starting this thread.

I currently have a 7.5' hook-on type, & I always dreaded the hooking on of the brances ordeal . I saw a few Pre-Lit Hinged Trees earlier in the season. Reading all your posts, I'm sorry I hesitated. I'm running out tonight to see if I can find one.

Thanks everyone!

 

[dizneenut]

We have one and love it. We have a 6 1/2 foot and it is soo easy to set up! And it looks great! Ours even rotates!

 

[Mamu]

I think when they are decorated they look good. I'm still undecided on the fiber-optic ones.

I myself just recently bought an artifical tree after 35 years of live trees. I'm a little behind on modern technology.

I do have to say though, once you purchase a pre-lit tree, unless you decide to purchase another tree what you buy is what you get.

White lights, you always have white lights. To me that sounds ho hum same lit tree year after year. I change my whole light style every couple of years. A couple of years ago I used synchronized cluster lights and mechanical ornaments. I have become very tired of them. Into storage for a few years. I purchased all little blue lights for the tree. I am going with a snowflake theme, all silver, white and blue in the living room.

 

[mamajoan]

So glad to see this thread.. I feel so odd .. you know going out to get the artificial tree thing.. had the real tree for sooo long. I am ready for the pre-lit or fibro optic tree. I know there must be a YC in PINE somewhere .. lol

The more responses I read on this thread the more ready I am to go get the new tree. Keep the responses coming and if you have any other tree links GREAT. I loved the tree classics site.. but my size trees are completely sold out.. waited to long..

oh well there is always next year.. but ya never know .. I might get lucky with a pre-lit tree this year too..


THANK YOU AGAIN For this thread!!

 

[Princess_Aurora]

We just got one too. I LOVE it! And we got a great deal too. 7 1/2 foot prelit tree for $110...regularly $225! We got it at Garden Ridge the day after Thanksgiving. It was crazy in there that day...all the artifical trees were practically all gone! The one we wanted (which was only a 6 1/2 foot) was all sold out. It was the cheaper one and was on sale for like $70 (regularly $140 I think) so we went ahead and got the more expensive one. Its got the big bulbs on it and its all white lights (which is the style I like...it looks more elegant to me). It came in three sections. I'll tell you, the hardest part was getting the bubble wrap off the sections. After it was off it went like this: "Snap, screw, fluff, snap, fluff, snap, fluff" and we were done! The bottom part screws into the base and the other two pieces just plug into each other. Then you fluff out the branches to give it the full look and that's it! All that's left is to hang up the ornements.

I have one of the fiber optic trees...its only a 3 foot. They look pretty when they're on, but when they're off it looks like you just have a blank tree with no lights on it. It looks so blah when its off. I wasn't too fond of it.

 

[TinkerPixie]

Just a hint, for those of you with artificial trees that aren't prelit...
There is no special lighting technique for those pre lit trees, I work in a christmas store year round, and we do the lighting too. When you put up your tree, just string your lights per section, if your tree has three sections, wire each section individually. Instead of going around and around with the lights, start at the trunk of the tree, and go out and back on each limb, wrapping tightly around the limb with the light string. It is simple, but time consuming the first time. After you wire it, you have a pre lit tree.
When you get ready to store the tree, just take it apart, and leave those lights on it.

Buy the lights you like, and use what you already have.........

 

[Niccole1012]

Haven't put mine up yet, but we just bought a 7 1/2 ft, prelit and fiber optic tree at Sam's Club for $138. Looked good in the store. There are 6 sections to put together. Should be an easy job. Woman at the door said she had put up the same tree the day before and it was beautiful.

I believe I have the same tree. I absolutely love it still after all these years. But I've been looking everywhere for manufacture info because I no longer have the box. Would you happen to know who it is? I need parts and cannot find any information on this beautiful fiber optic tree :-(

 

[Scornelius]

We have a fiber optic one that has lights that change colours. It's in one piece and you only have to lower and fluff the branches. I think it's tacky as heck, but DH loves it and regularly insists that we make it an 'all-seasons tree'.

 

[grafxgirl]

My mom gave me a pre-lit tree a few years ago that she no longer wanted. It is a beautiful, tall, full tree so I took it. The lights are a pain in the you-know-what to try to plug in correctly when putting the tree pieces together. Well, wouldn't you know this year the lights would not work! I ended up painstakingly yanking each strand of lights off every single branch of the tree so I could just string my own on. I didn't want to throw away the tree just because the lights stopped working, because the tree itself is in fantastic shape.

 

[grafxgirl]

Just a hint, for those of you with artificial trees that aren't prelit...
There is no special lighting technique for those pre lit trees, I work in a christmas store year round, and we do the lighting too. When you put up your tree, just string your lights per section, if your tree has three sections, wire each section individually. Instead of going around and around with the lights, start at the trunk of the tree, and go out and back on each limb, wrapping tightly around the limb with the light string. It is simple, but time consuming the first time. After you wire it, you have a pre lit tree.
When you get ready to store the tree, just take it apart, and leave those lights on it.

Buy the lights you like, and use what you already have.........

This is what I did this year, after yanking the pre-lit bulbs off my tree that no longer worked. You can even use green zip-ties to help hold the strings in place.

 

[Poohforyou]

I don't have one. They look allright.

My problem with them is that it defeats the whole fun of setting it up yourself. Other than that they are great.

I must be missing the "setting up a Christmas tree and stringing the lights is fun" gene .

Op, if you're going to go with an artificial tree I can't imagine not getting one with the lights already on.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

I have one and I do not like it.

The main reason is, a section of the lights likes to stop working intermittently.

Also, I got bored with white lights, so I am using the NON pre-lit tree. I got a bunch of multi-color LED lights, so I am excited to get it all decorated tomorrow

 

[ebtbmom]

I had my tree together, lighted, and fluffed up in about 20 minutes today, love it!!

 

[klmall]

OP - Another thank you for starting this thread!

We've had an nice artificial tree for years and loved it but it's definitely showing its age with the small fallout from year to year. It's time to buy a new one but I can't decide what I want....it's so good to hear the pros and cons!

Dear friends of ours always set up a fiber-optic tree and it just doesn't look like a tree to me! Pre-lit sounds wonderful but if certain strings could go out that is a definite negative. Also, trees with only white lights wouldn't please either.

I will probably end up buying a plain artificial tree so I can struggle to put up all the lights every year just to get the look I want.

Guess I have to get out there and look again.

 

[marcyinPA]

Hate ours. Half of the lights died on it the year after we bought it. I have to add light strands to it. Piece of junk.

 

[SpecialK]

Hate ours. Half of the lights died on it the year after we bought it. I have to add light strands to it. Piece of junk.

We've had two and the same thing happened to both of them. We're back to real trees so we don't have to take up space storing it.

 

[Niccole1012]

Actually, the Fiber Optic pre-lit tree I have is great! I've had it almost 10 years & the lights and everything is still working. It's full and I always get compliments on it every year. But I lost the cord to the optic lights somehow moving. I can still use the regular lights though. I love the optic though because it makes it appear to have even more lighting. It was about $200 at Sam's Club. I wish I new who manufactured it :-(

 

[Elmo9607]

I love mine...6 years old and still going strong. I'll never buy a regular tree after this one stops working...I hate putting lights on the tree!! $45 at WalMart for a 6'...it's great. 10 minutes to put it together and fluff! The lights are wired so if one goes out on a certain section, the entire strand doesn't go down, just the bulb itself

 

[Kathi OD]

I bought one about 10 years ago. Got it on sale for $99 and it still looks great. About 2 years ago, a couple of sections of lights went out. Got a light zapper at Target for less than $20 and it fixed those bad sections of lights (not sure exactly how it works, but it "completes the broken circuit" in that section of the light string). I've more than gotten my money's worth out of our pre-lit artificial tree.

 

[Nancy]

Well, not sure if the OP will be back since this thread was bumped up and is from 12/2002. But it is a timely thread.

We bought a cheap pre lit tree cause my husband hates spending money. I semi like it. I like the ease of setting it up. It's a little bare for me so I do add another string of lights to it..but that is just a quick wrap around and takes no time at all. I would like to get another one that is a bit more expensive and looks better but once the ornaments are on it doesn't look all that bad I guess.

I miss my other fake tree...that one was gorgeous but 2 Christmases ago it kept falling over (3 times in less than 2 weeks) and I ended up with broken ornaments and having to redo the tree one time too many so it got thrown out. It was just getting old and the branches were just not holding in the holders anymore so they would loosen up which would throw the tree off balance.