As I mentioned earlier this week, we got a real mini tree! And I finally got some twinkle lights up and some ornaments on that guy. I say this with much enthusiasm and hardly any hyperbole: it’s a life changer. I’m in love.
And Clara and Burger love it too (play Where’s Waldo in the dark and find them):
It’s so charming and warm and it looks so sweet with all of the handmade Pinterest challenge ornaments that I made here.
These are the only breakable ornaments that we’ll be putting out this year (since the tree is up on a table, so Clara can’t get to it). And it glitters like the dickens. So yes, it’s my new favorite thing ever. Oh and it was $19 at a local grocery store here in Richmond called Martin’s (outside near the curb) for anyone wondering. And it came with a stand, which is nice.
We even have some King Kong action going on thanks to this gorilla ornament at the top:
As for the tree skirt, that’s actually just a gray pashmina that I had already (I just swirled it around the base a few times to create a little skirt), so other than shelling out the money for the tree, we got to use all of the ornaments that I had already made (which factored out to around 71 cents a pop – more on those here) and even tossed together a free tree skirt.
We actually would have loved to find a potted evergreen that we could have planted in the backyard after the season, but after a few weeks of looking for an un-cut one that was small enough to sit on the table, we had no luck (most of them were 5+ feet tall). So we caved and got a cut one since it was already well into December and we didn’t want to miss the real-tree boat entirely. But if anyone knows of a local source for uncut table-sized evergreens we’d love to hear about it (we tried Lowe’s Home Depot, a few tree lots around town, and a few nurseries/plant stores – but all of the uncut ones were too tall/large to be tabletop ones).
You know me + shiny things = a match made in heaven. And Clara might just be having the most fun with the tree out of all of us. At least five times a day she runs over to it and points to various animals and gleefully shouts out things like “Rhino!!!” and “Hippo!!!” and “Aggigator!” like it’s the most exciting thing she’s seen all day. Never gets old. Man I love the holidays.
Believe it or not, John and I have never had a real tree in our house as a family (although both of us enjoyed them growing up). We went faux five-ish years ago (thanks to an after-Christmas sale at Target) and appreciated that we only had to haul it home once (having a small car, the notion of dragging home a big real tree each year was a little daunting). And with a pooch we appreciated the no-dropped-needles thing. It can’t be argued that a faux tree looks better than a real one, but somehow when we loaded it with lights and ornaments we still loved our faker year after year.
Here she is back in 2007 (when we had a terrible camera and our blog photos were smaller):
And in 2008 (with the same white and silver scheme):
And in 2009 (when we went crazy for citrus, and even dried fruit to make ornaments):
And in 2010 (with green, pink, and silver shimma goin’ on):
And since experts continue to debate whether a faux tree or a real tree is more eco-friendly (apparently it’s a really close call when it comes to hauling emissions and cutting them down every year vs. reusing a faux one for a while) we knew the most eco thing that we could do after purchasing a faux tree was to use it as long as possible. So we’ll still be setting up our full sized faker in the dining room to enjoy with some Clara-safe ornaments (bonus: everyone driving by will see it glowing in the window). Better get on that though. Eeks, is it really the eighth already? Better get crackin’.
Have you guys been decorating? Any other tabletop tree folks out there? I can’t believe it has taken us this long to give one a try.
Update: You can check out all of our favorite holiday decor finds here – many of which are under $15!
Jillian@TheHumbleGourmet says
I JUST heard on the radio this morning that it is more eco-friendly to get an artificial tree, but only if you keep it and use it for at least 10 years.
Katie says
Love it! I’m the opposite – I’ve always had a tabletop tree, but this year I graduated to a big tree! Of course, once I got it up I had to make the wall behind it wintery with some snowflake garland! So simple and so pretty!
http://everyday-pretty.com/2011/12/02/how-to-snowflake-garland/
YoungHouseLove says
Pretty!!
xo,
s
Joanna A. says
I love the mini tree!!! What a great way to still get that great Christmas smell without a super big and expensive tree!
We did the SAME thing a few years ago and scored a 6′ tree at 90% off at Target cost was only $10…we are going on our 4th year of using it and we still love it :)
Sarah says
I love the idea of a table top tree! My (fake, Target-post-Christmas-clearance tree) tree is huge and my living room is very small, so the only place I can put it is not a place where it’s visible from outside. I love seeing others’ trees in their windows and I’m sad that no one can see mine, so a little tree that could sit on the shelves in front of my window would be a perfect solution!
Trude says
So completely adorable! And great job getting such light-balanced photos of it too! :) I got a rosemary bush one at Trader Joe’s the other night, it even came with tiny star-shaped lights!
YoungHouseLove says
Cute!!
xo
s
Alan says
Love, Love, Love the dried lemon and oranges idea!! If i didn’t already do my tree decorations, I would have done it this year! looks like I know what my design scheme is for the next holiday season :)
lara says
PLEASE give us instructions on how you photographed the tree! esp the one in the dark centered on the window. GORGEOUS!
YoungHouseLove says
We just waited for dusk/dark and used a tripod and no flash. Shot in A mode. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Erin Ohio says
I love the little tree – it really makes your pretty ornaments pop! I’m also digging that yellow rug it looks like you used to have in your old house – unfortuneatley I wasn’t following you guys back then. I’m dreaming of a yellow rug on my newly refinished floors, a grey twill couch and a new coffee table…SANTA???
ellis says
Love it! And good night- did you use your pinterested tip on photographing Christmas trees? Your photos are DIVINE here.
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks! That was all John! He broke out the tripod and took them at dusk/dark with no flash in A mode!
xo,
s
Kim says
You could buy wooden nutcrackers and spray paint them white! Or I think I’ve seen them at either Crate and Barrel, CB2 or maybe West Elm.
YoungHouseLove says
Love that!
xo,
s
Mary K says
My mom has a mini Xmas tree on a table in her front bay window so the grandkids dont topple over the breakable and expensive ornaments. The best part is that it looks like a standard size Xmas tree from the street/window! Love it.
Bri says
SO i have been following your blog for many months now, and I look forward to your post daily!!!!! I notice in your tree pictures that you have stocking holders on your mantle.. WHERE ARE THEY FROM??? i have been looking for some, but they all have reindeer or stars etc… It looks to me that yours are just plain.. TOTALLY my style!!! I would love if you could give me a hint or two!!!
THANKS so much!
PS- we are about to reno our kitchen that hasn’t been touched since 1972!!! I CANT wait till its finished!!!!! I will definitely have to send you some before and after pictures!!!!
YoungHouseLove says
They’re from Target a while ago! Two for $9 I think. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Sabrina says
We went small and table top this year also. Our 9 month old is into EVERYTHING. We got a white artificial tree and covered it in jewel tone, target dollar bin balls. Looks great with our new plumage colored walls. I will miss our big tree, but our boy is proving to be far more daring then our daughter ever was. She is very gentle like Clara lol
Jerri says
Love it! I bought 4 fake trees on clearance after Christmas at Hobby Lobby a couple of years ago, but cannot figure out how to get them to stand upright in a pot without tipping over! Any suggestions? I’m sure it’s a simple thing. :)
YoungHouseLove says
Hmm, maybe try getting a stand? Or using a basket as the base and sticking the bottom of the tree into the basket with something dense in the basket to hold it in place. Good luck!
xo,
s
Julia@a-living-space says
We got a mini living tree for our apartment, and I’m obsessed with it! We posted about it here: http://a-living-space.blogspot.com/2011/11/getting-festive.html
Ours is about 4 feet tall, but we saw tons of smaller ones at the two nurseries we went to (but we are far away from you in Massachusetts, so that doesn’t really help you at all..)
I also made tons of ornaments, most of them inspired by Pinterest, that I blogged about and are now on our awesome tree!
YoungHouseLove says
So cute! Love all the homemade ornaments!
xo,
s
LavandulaLady says
How did you make the citrus slice ornaments? Is there a tutorial on that someplace? They look so fresh; if I tried that they’d look dried out!
YoungHouseLove says
Here’s that post for ya: https://www.younghouselove.com/2009/12/tis-the-season-part-two/
xo,
s
Todd says
This doesn’t really have to do with Christmas decorating, and is pretty random, but watching the video of y’all decorating the tree in the living room in your old house caused me to notice that there was a doorway behind you that I didn’t realize was there, which made me look up your old house’s floor plan that I found in this post (https://www.younghouselove.com/2009/10/whats-the-floor-plan-stan/) of yore, which made me realize that your old house had pretty much only one flow of traffic for anywhere you wanted to go, whereas your new house (especially with the wall knocked down in the kitchen) has many possible traffic patterns, which y’all must be loving; now I apologize for my major run-on sentence.
YoungHouseLove says
Yes! You said that perfectly. The new house feels so much more open and breezy! So even though it’s bigger it somehow feels easier to get everywhere since there are so many different routes (and “shortcuts”) to take!
xo,
s
joyjoy says
We’ve done a table top tree every year since we’ve been married. At first we did real ones, but at $20-40 each, we figured we could do better with a fake and use it over and over to offset any eco harm. We keep ours on a smaller side table, though, so our tree is 4ft tall. One of my favorite things about it is all the extra space we have under the tree to stash gifts–a very nice advantage with a family as large as ours.
Regarding the plantable tree, one year I bought a large rosemary bush that was trimmed in the shape of a Christmas tree. Once the holidays were over, I just planted it outside. It doesn’t smell like a fresh pine tree, but it still smells good!
YoungHouseLove says
Love that idea!
xo
s
Rhoda @ Southern Hospitality says
Awwww, I love it!! And I bought one too, almost just like yours. With a stand. Don’t you just love it? I used my vintage ornaments on mine that I grew up with & haven’t even posted it yet, but I will soon! It’s on the porch and looking so cute with colored lights and those Shiny Brites. Love, love it! Feels like childhood all over again.
YoungHouseLove says
Sounds amazing! Can’t wait to see it!
xo,
s
Amy Karber says
I love it!
And I am really LOVING the new rug and ottoman. Your living room is looking great!!!
Amy
Jenn T. says
I live in Oregon, which happens to be the #1 exporter of Christmas trees so they may be easier for me to find, but our local florists sell potted real trees for about the same price as yours. You could check there for next year.
Looks great, as usual!
art21 says
hi! the lowe’s on west broad in richmond (near vmfa) has small potted live trees, ranging from 12″ – 48″. you just have to travel to the lowe’s closest to lots of college apartments. ;) hope this helps your hunt for next year!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks so much for the tip!
xo,
s
Roberta says
OMG…I also saw some table-top real trees today as I walked into Lowes food and was so tempted to pick one up! But all of my ornaments are packed way in back of my storage…but I am still having twinges…to go back and get me on…lol Especially after seeing your ;} I could always do what we’ve done in the past with our table top tree that we put up one year when we were moving…we call it the “Booze Tree”…for a few years after that it was a tradition to put it up and take in down on New Year’s…which is our anniversary…lol All of our kiddos are grown up so we’d all take it down and play games all night ;} Here’s a photo on my post: http://con-tain-it.typepad.com/love_shack_nonsense/2011/12/finding-inspiration-for-the-holidays.html
karla says
Cute tree! I’m just curious why you’re so concerned about Clara and your large tree in the diningroom? I know you keep saying nothing breakable on it, but she seems like she is very well mannered. I have an inhome daycare with 6 rowdy boys under the age of 4 and I have no problem with them and all 5 of my large trees. They all have breakables on them. You just have to set the tone early with them and then they understand. 2 of my boys are 19 months and they walk up to the tree and say “no touch, Karla’s pretties” :) it’s pretty adorable.
On another note, I know you mentioned about not knowing what to do on your large tree yet, but I think Peacock feathers would be perfect in there! I did one of my trees, with my Hallmark Barbies with peacock, dark teal and limey olive. it turned out perfectly! I think that would be a great color scheme for you, it’d even be beautiful with some plum added! Although, I don’t know if you have all that stuff and or want to spend money on anything but it’s just a thought or maybe something to look for after Christmas during the sales!! :)) Merry Christmas!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks for the tip! We just don’t want her to be enamored with something shiny and pull the whole thing down on herself- but I’m sure we’ll make it festive and colorful and sweet without glass (even though she might be ok with breakables, it’s a fun challenge for ourselves to do something different). As for peacock feathers, they sound awesome!
xo,
s
Erin C. says
wowie, your living room is looking gorgeous!!! I just wanna cuddle up in there with a blanket and drink some hot chocolate.
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks! Come on over!
xo,
s
Katie says
We get a real tree every year by cutting one down ourselves. It’s my favorite tradition! We live in colorado, and it’s ten bucks for a permit to go out in national forest and find your tree. They have mapped out areas for you because it helps thin the forest, preventing forest fires. Also, since it is so freshly cut, we’ve never had a problem with falling needles or branches browning! We’ve also cut a mini tree out there as well! Love your tree!
Melody says
I don’t know if anyone suggested it or not,but down here in my area of Florida, one of -The Best- places to get those tiny table top Christmas trees live from is your local flower shop. They will normally sell you one plain, as is, or decorate them to look like mini-Christmas trees.
YoungHouseLove says
Great tip Melody- thanks!
xo,
s
Elizabeth says
I know it’s not a pine, but I saw potted Rosemary Christmas trees about the size of a table top tree in the floral section at Martin’s a week or two ago. I think it was the Martin’s right across from Chesterfield Town Center.
YoungHouseLove says
Such a cute idea too!
xo,
s
Margaret says
It’s interesting about the fake vs real tree thing, isn’t it? We used to have a fake tree and when we moved after having it for about 7 years, we got rid of it. For a couple reasons – it really didn’t make sense to move it across the planet with all its accompanying dust and we noticed on the instructions when our first little one that there was a giant warning about how toxic it was if ingested. That and if we put it up without kitchen gloves on, we both would get kind of icky rashes. I think we both felt that at least if the baby (now babies) chew on a real tree, they might get an yucky taste in their mouths and a little bit of exposure to pesticides and sap, but at least we probably won’t have to call poison control.
Courtney Foster-Donahue says
Love it — it just GLOWS! I’ve got my own table top tree too, as I live in a shoebox-sized NYC apt. Unfortunately, it’s not real as I am allergic to most evergreens. Here’s the link (Excuse the terrible pictures): http://thegingerpennypincher.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/show-and-tell-thrifty-tree-decoratin/
YoungHouseLove says
Such a cute tree!
xo,
s
Sherry says
wht a cute little tree. i don’t disagree that if used for many years, an artificial tree has a similar environmental impact but considering that you use no-VOC paint and such, isn’t it silly to store a PVC tree which emits VOC and phthalates in your house for the next 20 years?
YoungHouseLove says
It’s just one of those balance things! Not all of our clothes or food or furniture is organic, but we do our best to balance things (like using no-VOC paint and composting and driving one car, etc).
xo,
s
Sherry says
Thanks – it’s so hard to remember the balance. We eat partially organic as well – mainly because of budget. :0 Keep up the good work. I love reading your blog for all your great ideas.
Kate says
My husband and I cut down our real Christmas tree for the first time ever. Not a great experience and felt totally like the Griswolds when it was over. We brought our chainsaw only to find out we couldn’t use it for liability reasons, so my husband had to saw down the tree with a rusty hack saw. Then we hiked all the way through the lot to the back to find the perfect tree forgetting we had to haul it out ourselves (while I’m wearing our 4 month old baby girl in the bjorn). AND…we picked out a tree that was too big. So we earned our glorius real tree.
Anyhoo…I watched your old videop of decorating the Christmas tree and really wanted to know how you did the time lapse tree decorating video? I use a flip cam too, and I would love to do some time lapse footage.
YoungHouseLove says
We sped everything up in iMovie (which comes free on most Mac computers). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Gretchen says
Hey there–love the mini tree! It’s our baby’s first Christmas, so in addition to the big one, we decorated a real potted mini tree just for her. We thought it would be sweet to plant in the backyard after Christmas and watch it grow with her! :)
Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I got the little tree at the Home Depot behind Chesterfield Town Center…not sure if you’ve already been over that way, but it only cost me about $20 (it’s about 18 inches tall). Good luck!
Gretchen
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks so much for the tip Gretchen! Sounds really sweet!
xo,
s
Nicole Robbins says
I have the same NYC ornament of the empire state building to signify when I was there for grad school. miss it there but it was great to go back to new england too! funny that great minds thing alike :)
YoungHouseLove says
Love it!
xo
s
Bill says
Awesome idea! Maybe I can find some plastic rockets/planets/stars for our smaller aluminum tree. My little guy would love it. Great idea guys!
Lisha says
What a fun compilation of all your years of christmas tree decorating! And what a good idea to have your videos in fast motion! I like to record us decorating our tree too, but it always seems kinda boring looking back on it… fast motion is a good idea. I’m going to take and use that idea! ;)
And I really like your sparkling tabletop tree, especially the pics of you holding up each and every ornament so they all get their own photo!
~Lisha
Valenti says
You should totally consider Felt ornaments for your big tree; they’d be totally kid-friendly and take up little room when it comes to storage. The plus is that you can make almost any kind and mix of shapes, and really all it takes is some felt sheets and embroidery threads. You don’t even need to be good with sewing to make them! All you have to do is use a running stitch along the edges if you’re sewing two pieces together (I think ones made with contrasting colours on either side look the most smashing), or you can be super effortless and just cut out cute shapes from one sheet. There’s even stiffened felt that would be perfect for that, and I’m certain you could find a bunch of pre-cut felt shapes on Etsy if you were feeling particularly shortcut-y. A little ribbon loop stitched in at the top makes the perfect hanger.
My family has always had faux trees, except for one or two years when I was very, very young, but we were all kind of allergic to them anyway. I know that my Nana has had her faux tree for over eleven years now, so I think that’s totally out-weighed the faux-vs-real tree thing! It’s also so much easier to put lights on a faux tree, because you can add the lights to each layer of branches as you add them, which makes the whole job so much faster!
YoungHouseLove says
Definitely a cute idea!
xo,
s
Beth says
Our local Lowe’s has tons of potted Norfolk Pine trees that are the perfect height for a table. Maybe it’s a regional thing. Weird. Your tree looks beautiful!
Kristin F says
I’m with you-a real tree, no matter how small, can’t be beat. We’ve had faux for about 10 years now, turns out there is such a thing as “Christmas asthma” and my son developed it when he was 1. The Dr recommended we switch to fake that year and though we have a beautiful 7 footer, I’ve missed the whole real tree, needle dropping, pine smelling thing. Since he’s older now, I warned the family we are going to have a real tree next year. Only the “asthmatic” was excited! But maybe I could get away with a smaller version, so thanks for the idea!
ps: bonus to fake tree though: it’s now only cost us about $20 a year for that tree, versus $70+/year for real.
Nancy says
For several years we used rosemary as our small tree and planted it later. You can find it all over, sometimes even in a decorative pot. Smells great, too.
YoungHouseLove says
Love that idea too!
xo
s
Jennifer Can Quilt says
I was at Ellwood Thompson’s this weekend and they had potted mini-trees. I almost picked one up.
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks for the tip!
xo,
s
Sam C says
Don’t know if someone already suggested it, but check out local Scout troops, they generally have a wide assortment of sizes. The boy scout troop where we got ours had a few 3-4ft trees (noble firs, frasier firs, I forget the rest). Just another option :)
YoungHouseLove says
Great suggestion!
xo,
s
caroline @ c.w.frosting says
Beautiful collection of trees! Thanks for the tree skirt idea. I desperately needed a mini tree skirt & didn’t know what to do. Now I have a scarf skirt =) Merry Christmas!
alia says
So I’m a little late to the party, but around here at Christmas you can get rosemary bushes trimmed to look conical at the florists’. They are only 18″ high, so that might be too small– and the one I got didn’t live very long past Christmas (so I couldn’t plant it in the ground as I’d hoped) but it smelled nice and was alive when I got it. Probably.
YoungHouseLove says
Cute!
xo
s