Best Artificial Christmas Trees

When scouring the web for possible contenders to evaluate, we narrowed our search based on the advice we received from industry experts and our own research. And unlike Consumer Reports’ tests, which are done in a lab setting, this project took place within the comfort of our homes and in our New York City office.

This prompted us to set a few additional benchmarks, such as height and size. While our city apartments aren’t built to accommodate 10-foot-tall structures—or extra-wide ones, for that matter—we took our evaluations to CR’s office, where we had more leeway with space. If you choose a smaller or larger tree of any model we reviewed, it should be more or less the same quality, albeit a different weight.

Both of us grew up with real Christmas trees, so our expectations were high for how a proper Christmas tree should look. Realism was our No. 1 concern, but usability and overall charm were our other top priorities as we evaluated the 12 trees. 

Ahead, we’ll let you know what to expect from each tree when it comes to assembly, how realistic it looks, what we think of the lighting, and what it was like to take each one down.