Choosing an Artificial Christmas Tree That Fits Your Ceiling

A tree that brushes the ceiling looks squeezed into the room, and one that stops well short of the corner looks lost in it. You can avoid both with a tape measure and a few minutes before anything comes out of the box. Our Christmas trees run from a 6 ft pre-lit tree with a timer to a cypress sold in 7.5 ft and 9 ft. The right one depends on your room more than on taste. Measure first. The lights come next, and the topper comes last.

Measure the ceiling where the tree will stand

Start at the floor in the exact spot where the tree will go and run the tape straight up. Do it there, not in the middle of the room, because a beam, a soffit or a sloped section often sits right where you pictured the tree. Write the number down. Your tree, its stand and whatever you put on top all have to fit under it.

Next, look at how each height is given. Our 7.5 ft cypress stands 7.5 ft tall on its metal base, so the stand is already inside that number and you do not add it again. The 6 ft pre-lit tree is a little taller than its name, at 6.2 ft, and it also stands on a metal base. The same cypress comes in 9 ft too, which is 18 inches more than the 7.5 ft size.

Then leave room above the tip. You need space to reach the top branches when you fluff them, and space for the topper. If your ceiling is not comfortably taller than 9 ft plus a topper, the 7.5 ft cypress is the better fit for that room. The 6 ft tree gives you one more answer for a low ceiling. Its top section can curve over or stand straight, so in a tight spot you can let the tip bend instead of settling for a smaller tree.

The corner has a width, and so does the path around it

Height gets the attention, but width decides whether a corner works. The 7.5 ft cypress is 51 inches wide, a little over 4 ft of floor at its fullest point. Measure out from the corner along each wall and check that the widest branches clear the window frame, the curtain and the light switch you reach for every evening.

Then look at the heat and the exits. The NFPA tips republished by the Connecticut Commission on Fire Prevention and Control advise keeping a tree at least three feet from any heat source, and they say a tree should never block an exit. That rules out more corners than you might expect. The spot beside the fireplace, the one over a heating vent and the one next to the back door are often the first ones you think of.

Walk the room once with the tape still in your hand. A door that swings toward the corner, a hallway or the route from the sofa to the kitchen will put people against the lowest branches all season.

Shape matters here as well. The cypress has a sparse, open form with 612 branch tips, so you see the wall through it. That airy look sits well in a narrow corner where a dense tree would crowd the room. Its branches are meant for light decorations such as small bows, not heavy glass ornaments, so plan your trim around that before you buy.

Four trees side by side

Once you have your numbers, the choice usually narrows to one or two trees. A low ceiling points you to the 6 ft tree. A tall room with a wide corner can take the 9 ft cypress. A room somewhere in between usually suits the 7.5 ft size. Here is how ours compare on the points that matter when you are fitting a room.

Setup differs too. The 6 ft tree comes in 3 pre-assembled hinged sections with 416 branch tips, starting from a full base and narrowing toward a playful curved top. The cypress has hinged branches with memory wire, so you open each one and bend the tips into shape rather than hooking branches into a pole. Give yourself time to fluff from the bottom up, because the light falls differently once the tips point outward.

Whatever you choose, the CPSC advises looking for the 'fire resistant' label on an artificial tree. Read the box and the tag on the tree before you set it up. Then keep the box. Next December you will want that label again.

Set the timer once and let the lights keep the hours

A tree you have to remember to switch off ends up lit all night. The 6 ft pre-lit tree solves that with a remote and a timer that runs 6 hours on and 18 hours off. Turn it on at the hour you want it glowing and start the timer. Six plus eighteen makes a full day, so the tree comes back on at the same hour tomorrow without you touching it.

The same remote gives you 8 modes and 4 dimmer levels. Try the dimmer before you pick a mode, since warm white at a lower level often suits a living room better in the evening than the brightest setting.

The cypress trees have no built-in timer, so a plug-in timer or a habit of switching them off at bedtime does the same job. Put the plug where you can reach it without leaning into the branches.

Two habits from the safety agencies are worth keeping every year. The CPSC advises never stringing together more than three sets of incandescent lights and never overloading an outlet. Our pre-lit trees use LEDs, yet the outlet rule still covers everything you plug into that wall, from the tree to the lamp beside it. The NFPA tips advise using lights that carry the label of an independent testing laboratory and replacing any set with worn or broken cords or loose connections. So when the tree comes out of storage, look over the plugs and wires before the first evening. More of these reminders sit on our holiday decorating safety page.

Wrapping a tree in the 60 ft floating spiral

If you want more light than a pre-lit tree gives, a spiral strand changes the whole shape of it. Our floating spiral lights carry 2000 warm white LEDs in a dense cluster, pre-attached on aluminum wire. The strand is 60.4 ft long in total with 50 ft of it lit, so you have about 10 ft of unlit length to work with. Count the 80 straps in the box before you start.

You wrap the wire around the tree and fasten it with the straps as you go. Plan the turns before you tie anything. Space them evenly from the tip down to the bottom branches, and use more straps where the wire wants to slide, which is usually near the top where the tree is thin. A spiral reads best when the gaps between turns look even from across the room. Step back after every few turns and look.

The strand runs on the same pattern as the 6 ft tree, with a remote, 8 modes, 4 brightness levels and a timer that stays on for 6 hours and off for 18. It is described for outdoor use, and its instructions say not to submerge it and to keep the plug away from water. The NFPA tips note that some lights are made for indoor or outdoor use but not both, so read the label on the box before you decide where the set goes. You can see the rest of our light-up decorations if the tree is only one part of your plan.

Tie the bow on last

The topper goes on after the lights, so you are never reaching through it to fix a strand. Our 6 ft giant bow is red velvet with built-in foam support, which keeps the loops full instead of flat. It measures about 6 ft long, and the bow itself is roughly 27 by 12 inches. Count that bow in the ceiling figure you wrote down at the start.

Tie the knot to the top section with the velvet ties, then let the two tails fall down the front of the tree. Shape the tails so they cross the lights instead of covering them, and pin them lightly to a branch or two partway down so they hang where you want. On a 7.5 ft tree, 6 ft tails run most of the way to the floor.

If you are starting from nothing, the 7.5 ft cypress also comes as a set with the 6 ft red velvet bow, so the tree and topper arrive together. The bow on its own comes in red or white, and it is made for indoor and covered outdoor use, so after the holidays you can move it to a door or a wall. Our giant bows sit together in one place.