The 7 Best Artificial Christmas Trees
The best way to think about who should get an artificial Christmas tree is to compare the benefits and drawbacks of fake versus live trees.
On the plus side, artificial trees are:
Durable: A good artificial Christmas tree can last a decade, whereas live trees last a single season.
Cost-effective over the long term: Up front, artificial trees are much more expensive than live trees. In 2022, a live tree on average cost $80, according to the National Christmas Tree Association, which represents the live-tree industry. If you live in a major city, you may find that hard to believe; in our experience, prices there have tended to be much higher. In any case, a good artificial tree can last a decade or more, so the up-front cost is spread out over time.
Low maintenance and low stress: You don’t have to water a fake tree or shimmy underneath it to secure it in a stand. You don’t have to get to the live-tree lot early enough every year to find a good one, or schlep it home from a cut-it-yourself farm (traditions that plenty of people enjoy, of course). Having the tree at home and ready to go when Thanksgiving wraps up means one fewer errand and one less expense at a busy, budget-straining time of year.
Not messy: A fake tree doesn’t scratch up the roof of your car in transit or cover your hands in sap when you’re moving it or setting it up. A fake tree doesn’t shed, and it wouldn’t leave a sad trail of needles if you were to you drag it out of the house after New Year’s Day.
Safer than live trees: A 2019 New York Times article noted that around 160 home fires a year involved Christmas trees, and the National Fire Protection Association reported that “a disproportionate share of Christmas tree fires involved natural trees.” (In an NFPA video, a dry, unwatered live tree burns furiously.) The NFPA also found that Christmas tree lights were the cause of close to half of all Christmas tree fires. Be sure to check any tree lights for exposed wires, and never hang ornaments directly on a wire—the sharp point on a hanger can pierce the wire’s protective coating.
On the downside, fake trees are:
A pain to store: Storage is the most important reason to skip a fake tree—if you don’t have a garage, a big closet, or a basement where you can keep a box the size of a water heater in the offseason, forget it. And if you store your tree in an uninsulated space, both heat and dampness can damage it and shorten its lifespan. We recommend further protecting your investment with a dedicated storage bag, such as the Elf Stor Christmas Tree Bag; they’re easier to get a tree into than the original carton.
Not beautiful out of the box: With a fake tree, setup is hardly effortless, as we saw consistently during our firsthand tests. “Fluffing,” or individually splaying and shaping the hundreds of branch tips, can take an hour if you’re working alone. By contrast, once you get a live tree back home and secure it in the stand, you just need to put its best face forward and start decorating.
Not 100% realistic: Even the highest-quality fake trees still don’t appear truly lifelike when viewed up close. They can be quite similar to the real thing, but their plastic branches usually have a uniform appearance and a waxen shine that tells the eye they’re unnatural. That said, from a distance and lit up, they can look very, very good.
Odorless: Fake trees lack the sweet piney aroma that many people associate with Christmas.
There’s also the question of whether fake trees or real trees are better for the environment. The conclusion we reached is that live trees are considerably better in that regard. But buying a fake tree every 10 years is a drop in the environmental bucket compared with the ecological cost of other, everyday consumption (gasoline, food, electricity, plane travel, and so on).
