Black Friday / Cyber Monday deals 2023

[JCC]

My fairly cheap home depot tree I have used for years also has options for colored vs white, always lit vs dimming, etc. So much easier and cleaner than real trees. And much less picking up puked pine needles from pets.

[Blackhawk]

And i have no idea how it could take two hours!

[stessier]

And i have no idea how it could take two hours!

Wrapping every branch individually and making sure they are all spread out to make it look good. Need a ladder to do the top of the tree. It's extremely annoying.

Pre-lit comes in three pieces - stick them together, spread the branches, and you're done.

[Blackhawk]

Wrapping each branch would do it.

I plug in the lights. I wrap them around the tree at even intervals. I step back. I move a string a little here and there to make sure they're even. Ten minutes, and it looks good. Admittedly, I don't have a 7.5' tree (my ceilings are big enough, but the diameter would be a problem), but even then I can't see it taking more than 15-20 minutes. I can see how fine tuning it, branch by branch to perfection, would take a lot longer. But I think it's one of those situations where the first 90% of the result is achieved in the first 10% of the job. Are my lights evenly spaced? Yes. Are there gaps? No. Are there clumps? No. I'm good with that, and I've learned that if I took the time to get that last 10% in, absolutely nobody would be able to tell the difference.

The tiny time savings (for me at least) is worth the ability to change what my lights look like from time to time.

[Carpet_pissr]

[Jeff V]

My pre-lit has 20 different "scenes" - 10 for pure white and 10 for RGB. The tree is 7 years old and I've never noticed a single light out. I'm also not sure how you put on lights in 10 minutes - it added at least two hours to my process to string 1000 lights on our 7.5' tree.

I spent about 5 minutes, but it also looks like I spent 5 minutes. Daughter got tired waiting for me to help her with the top ornaments tonight and went to bed. It's among the many things I need to do in the morning before we leave.