Pre-lit artificial Christmas Trees?

[BrerGnat]

I have a question about these. Can you remove the lights that come on them? We are going to get one of these for the first time this year. Problem is, we want one with colored lights, and all the ones we like come pre-lit with WHITE lights. I am wondering, is it possible (and easy) to remove the strand of lights that the tree comes pre-lit with?

I see them set up in the stores, and they seem really weaved in the branches good, and it seems like a real pain to get the lights off, and I'm not sure if you're even supposed to remove them. So, thought I'd ask here.

I suppose we could just add a strand of colored lights to appease DS (it's HIM that is obsessed with the NEED for colored lights on the tree...he has autism...we try to give in to those types of desires when it's possible). ;)

[disneymom15]

I would keep looking until you find one you like:tree: My inlaws bought a display model with clear lites on it. When we got it home, there must have been a power surge and about half the lites burned out. We pulled out all the bad bulbs and replaced them with new ones, it took 2 of us about an hour to do this. I suppose you could intermix colored bulbs if you want to take the time.

[Ian]

I don't know about every artificial tree ever made, but the one we have you definitely could not remove the lights. They run inside the "branches" of the trees, so it would basically be impossible to get them out and replace them.

We're running into the same issue, though. We bought our current tree in our old house where we had 8' ceilings, so we got a 7' tree.

But our new house has 10' ceilings and our tree looks a tad small. We've been wanting to get a 9' one for a few years now, but for some reason the 9' ones only seem to come with white lights and I refuse to have an tree with all white lights.

[kakn7294]

I have a pre-lit tree that I purchased about 4 - 5 yrs ago at KMart. Mine has white lights that are basically just strings of lights wound through the branches and clipped on with little plastic clips - the entire string can be removed, or the individual lights can be taken out to be replaced. I have removed a string before to replace it and it was a TOTAL PAIN!!! I don't recommend it if you can avoid that option - you'll be working for hours!

[Disney Doll]

My cousin just attempted a similar task with a tree from Hobby Lobby. In her case the lights were attached by lots and lots of plastic clips that had to be cut off. She said it took 2 adults about 3 hours to get it done. So depending on the tree it may be possible, but certainly try to avoid it if you can.

[Jasper]

Believe it or not, about 15 years ago or so I was a semi-professional Christmas tree light wrapper! At the time the craze for having your lights wrapped all the way along the branch to the trunk had started but the age of the pre-lit tree had not yet come. So anyway, I wrapped a couple of trees for friends and one of them was seen by the owner of THE major plant nursery in our area. He liked so much what he saw that he hired me for several years to wrap trees for sale at his nursery during Christmas.

Having wrapped probably 500 or more trees in my life I can tell you that this is not something you want to undertake on your own unless you have a lot of time and an inordinate amount of patience!!

The best thing to do is either wait until you find one with colored lights or simply get yourself an unlit tree and drape colored lights on it like we all used to do before the wrapping fad started!

[BrerGnat]

Ugh, that's what I figured. Thanks for the quick answers, though.

I admit, I like colored light better too. Why the preponderance of white lights? Are they just cheaper? :confused:

We did see one with colored LED lights at Costco that was just gorgeous. The problem is, though, the diameter of the base of the tree is like 60", and that is pushing it for our living room. I wanted to do a slim tree this year, so we wouldn't have to remove furniture to fit in the tree. However, THAT is the tree that started this whole "I want the tree with the colored lights" obsession for DS, so maybe we should just get that one and relegate some chairs to the garage for a month or so. Sounds like a much better trade off than dealing with trying to affix colored lights to a "white light" tree.

Thanks again. You guys are very helpful!

[cer]

I don't know if you have these in your area, but Garden Ridge Pottery has a great selection and offers both multi-colored and all white for each tree type.

[RedSoxFan]

We bought a pre-lit tree a couple of years ago at Michael's --- it came with colored lights.

[thrillme]

Keep looking. I've seen some at Walmart and many other places. You might even try on-line.

They USED to be only white but they've been venturing out a lot more to even include UPSIDE DOWN trees avaliable at Sam's and Target.

HA HA...you can get a UPSIDE DOWN colored light tree and you wouldn't have to move ANY furniture except that which is on the ceiling (could be a big problem if you have Figment for a house pet).:D

[DizNee143]

i would definetly keep looking..cuz most places seem to always have both..you have the choice of white lights or the color lights..and on a few i have seen you can have both..its pretty cool..
take a look at target..walmart..sears..and qvc..qvc has alot of nice ones..
goodluck!! :tree:

[BrerGnat]

I have a hard time with buying these things without seeing them. I am really picky about artificial trees. I will ONLY buy the kind that have pine needles that look and feel like REAL pine needles. ;) I know...I'm picky. But, I hate those kind of trees where the "needles" are made of like vinyl-fabric stuff that bends. I will head back out to Target and Costco, tape measure in hand. I can't believe that tree I saw at Costco was really 5' wide....it didn't look that big....

[vicster]

I have seen pre-lit trees with colored lights. Why would you buy a pre-lit tree if you want to take the lights off?

[BrerGnat]

We bought a pre-lit tree a couple of years ago at Michael's --- it came with colored lights.

Oooohhh...Michaels...didn't even think of there. We have a Michaels here, right next door to Costco AND Target (in the same shopping center).

We WILL find a tree! :thumbsup:

[buzznwoodysmom]

A friend of mine who is a decorator once told me that mixing white and colored lights on a Christmas tree is much better than colored lights alone. The white lights make the tree look brighter than just the colored lights. You could buy the tree with white lights and just add a few strands of colored lights. I did this with my kids tree in their playroom one year and it looked great. We gave them our older, smaller pre lit tree when we bought a new one, but they wanted colored lights so I just added them to the tree. I know this sort of defeats the purpose of a pre lit tree, but its an option. Good luck.

[BrerGnat]

A friend of mine who is a decorator once told me that mixing white and colored lights on a Christmas tree is much better than colored lights alone. The white lights make the tree look brighter than just the colored lights. You could buy the tree with white lights and just add a few strands of colored lights. I did this with my kids tree in their playroom one year and it looked great. We gave them our older, smaller pre lit tree when we bought a new one, but they wanted colored lights so I just added them to the tree. I know this sort of defeats the purpose of a pre lit tree, but its an option. Good luck.

I agree with this in concept. Target has a tree by Sylvania that is prelit with BOTH colored and white lights, and it's even REMOTE CONTROLLED! You can have just the white on, just the colored, or both, they can blink, alternate, or be constant on. It seemed like the PERFECT TREE, until I saw it set up, and the branches are a mix of "real looking" pine needles and those cheap vinyl-fabric looking things. The tree itself looks awful. :ack: Great concept...terrible execution. I have to say, though, the lights look fabulous. :thumbsup:

[Scar]

... or simply get yourself an unlit tree and drape colored lights on it like we all used to do before the wrapping fad started!That's what I was thinking. Don't they sell these anymore? :confused:

[mgmnut]

A friend of mine who is a decorator once told me that mixing white and colored lights on a Christmas tree is much better than colored lights alone. The white lights make the tree look brighter than just the colored lights. You could buy the tree with white lights and just add a few strands of colored lights. I did this with my kids tree in their playroom one year and it looked great. We gave them our older, smaller pre lit tree when we bought a new one, but they wanted colored lights so I just added them to the tree. I know this sort of defeats the purpose of a pre lit tree, but its an option. Good luck.


We did the same thing last year. We were getting tired of just the white lights so we strung some colored lights through the tree also. Changed the whole look and I think we are going to continue to do it that way.

[DisneyLandMomma]

I was gonna suggest on at Costco but I guess that's the one you saw too! :blush:

We have a beautiful artificial tree that looks sooo real. We got it years ago and even though I wish we could have one prestrung with lights, I just love the "realness" of our tree...it's huge at the bottom too. Not much room in the living room when we set it up.

[dnickels]

As the son of a Christmas tree farm owner, I'm obligated to recommend you get a real tree. :tree:

I'll save my spiel on the fake ones so as not to offend all the PPs who have them. :thedolls:

[hokies4life]

I just wanted to put out there that Home Depot and Lowes have good choices in trees too. We spent so much time looking everywhere (Walmart, Target, Sears, basically every store we could think of) and finally found the most amazing tree at Home Depot.

:pine: A 7.5' Fraiser Fir Tree with 750 colored lights. AMAZING!!! And it was so much cheaper than other places we saw.

I hope your search goes well! :santa3:

[BrerGnat]

Thank you for that tip as well. There's a Lowe's directly next to Costco. You can park between them and walk to either one. I love where I live at this time of year. It's shopping center heaven. :blush: Makes life easier when I've gotta do all this with two little ones.

Tomorrow, we're on a mission! I want to have the tree choices narrowed WAY down before DH comes home. I'm sure the last thing he is going to want to do upon coming home from 9 months deployment is be dragged around from store to store looking at christmas trees. He'll just want to get the first one we see. I just need to make sure the "first one we see" is the right one, if you know what I mean. ;)

[DizneyRox]

Having gone on a hunt for the perfect fake tree myself, I would probably vote for getting the tree you want and worry about the lights later.

I just got done setting up our tree in the new house, and spent about 8 hours total getting it just right. I would NOT recommend replacing the light strings, but doing the individual lights I don't think would be all that difficult. Tedious, but not impossible. It took me about 10 minutes to find ONE bulb that was blown out, and the best I could figure out was to take one good bulb, start at one end of the out string and replace them one at a time until the lights came on. It wasn't horrible...

You've probably spent more time looking for the right combination of tree/light than you would have spent getting the right tree and replacing the bulbs. Kindof like driving 20 minutes out of your way to save 2 cents on a gallon of gas.

[ElenitaB]

We've always had an artificial tree and we've always added extra light strings to it (angel lights, colored lights, bubble lights). One year I did get an LED tree, and it lasted just one year (gave it away) because the tree "limbs" didn't have the strength to hold up ornaments.

I'd love to have a real tree one year, but it's not in the works for our family. So it's our artificial tree or no tree at all. :tree:

[thrillme]

Congratulations everybody now you've got me wanting a "new" tree. Mine is "oh my"...10-11 years old now...I used to have only REAL trees then one year when my DS was a baby my late husband just didn't want to do the tree thing and we couldn't afford it. I was soooo cranky at not having a tree that I swore it would NEVER happen again so I bought artificial right after Christmas. But now it's starting to wear out. (I guess I got my $40 out of it).

Ya'lls got me curious about the "plastic" needles. I've never seen them before. WOW...some of them can look very convincing but yeah the other stuff that's stuffed in between can be "questionable". NOW I want a tree with the real looking needles and I want a multi-colored pre-lit...(I'll add some of my own lights for the hallmark ornaments). I like to "mix" several different styles of lights...plain (for the ornaments), blinking, LED bulbs, ice...but it would save some time if it was Pre-Lit. Now I want either a fold up or one of those that come in three parts.

Thanks a lot guys...:spend::pine::santa3::elf: Now that I know what I didn't know...I want.:(

[brownie]

If you are just going to remove the lights anyways, I wouldn't buy a pre-lit tree. Another option would be to buy replacement bulbs for the tree and replace the white bulbs that come with it with colored ones. You could also just add strings of colored lights to the tree. I would keep looking and ask about options for colored lights in the pre-lit trees you like, though.

[BrerGnat]

The funny thing about all this is that we have a box of multi colored lights that we bought YEARS ago, before we even had kids, one year when we were going to buy a real tree, and we never did (because around here the "real" trees are brown and horrible looking). We never even opened that box of lights. So, we still have it. What are the chances they still work?

Anyway, I think I have DS sort of convinced to have a tree with white AND colored lights. I keep asking him "how about a tree with BOTH white and colored lights?" (just in case that is what we end up having to do) and at first, he was resistant, but then I showed him a tree at Target that was set up like that, and he seemed to like it, so I think if we go that route, it will be okay. But then, that tree ALSO had pinecones affixed to it, so NOW he wants a tree "and with pinecones too". Oh brother... What have we gotten into. :D