Holiday Decor
National Tree Company Crestwood Spruce Garland Review: Draping a Banister
Nine feet of pre-lit spruce, one staircase, and two Christmases of not stringing lights by hand.
I wound lights through a plain garland by hand for nineteen years. Then I bought one pre-lit garland and got my Saturday back.
Nine feet of pre-lit spruce, one staircase, and two Christmases of not stringing lights by hand.
A battery garland and a plug-in garland do the same job in different ways. After two Christmases on my own banister, here is the plain version.
I spent a decade winding light strings through a plain garland every November. Two Christmases ago I stopped. Here is what changed, in the order I noticed it.
I wound lights through a plain garland by hand for nineteen years. Then I bought one pre-lit garland and got my Saturday back.
The whole job is five steps and about twenty minutes, and none of them involve a nail, a hook or a piece of tape on your handrail.
Two seasons on one banister, in a hallway with no outlet. Here is what the National Tree Company Crestwood Spruce garland does well, what it does not, and who should walk away from it.
Four seasons in the same front window, one basement trip a year, and no light strands to untangle. Here is what the hykolity 7.5 ft prelit tree does well and where it asks for patience.
One tree I have owned for three seasons, one brand I know from a garland and a stack of listings. Here is where each one is honestly better.
The tree that made me stop dreading the weekend after Thanksgiving, and the ten small things that add up to an easier December.
Twenty-four years of stringing lights by hand, one afternoon on the living room floor, and the tree that ended it.
Stand it up, stack the sections, connect the plugs, then open 1,450 tips by hand. The order matters more than the muscle.
Four seasons in the front window, and the parts of owning a prelit tree that the listing photos leave out.
Two falls and two Christmases with nine real wax pillars, a remote, and a timer. What held up, what I would change, and who should skip them.
Nine wax pillars or a bag of small lights? After two years of living with both, the answer comes down to how much flat surface you actually have.
Twenty-four years of decorating this house, and the mantel finally stopped being a chore. Ten reasons the flameless set stayed, from a woman who still lights real candles at the dinner table.
The mantel was the one spot that made me nervous. Two falls later, it is the spot I turn on first.
The same nine pillars, the same shelf, two seasons. The order I put things up in, and what I move between September and December.
Two falls, two Christmases, nine wax pillars on one mantel. What the real wax look gets right, and the four things I would want to know before I bought it.
One fabric box, 54 dividers, and the first January in twenty-four years I did not lose an ornament.
One fabric box with 54 divided slots, compared honestly against the newspaper and the plastic totes already in your basement.
After twenty-four years of cardboard boxes and newspaper, one divided fabric box did what a decade of good intentions could not: it got my ornaments through the off season without a single crack.
Three cardboard boxes, one cracked ornament every January, and the single box that ended the newspaper ritual.
The box matters less than the order you do it in. Five steps, one shelf, and the January habit that ended cracked ornaments in my house.
One January pack-away and one December unpacking. What fifty round ornaments fit into, what stayed in the cardboard carton, and the two places the listing contradicts itself.
Two falls with the 38 piece DomeStar set on a covered porch and a living room mantel. What the sizes actually are, how the leaves carry the whole thing, and the one fix that keeps it from blowing into the flower bed.
One of these is a tabletop set and one is porch furniture. Picking the wrong one is how a bag of pumpkins ends up in the basement for ten years.
Two falls in, a tabletop set of eight foam pumpkins and thirty leaves has outlasted every farm stand run I ever made. Here is why it stays and the real ones do not.
Real pumpkins went soft by the middle of October every single year. Two falls ago I switched to a small fake set and I have not been back to the farm stand since.
Grouping, height and layering with a small pumpkin set, from someone who finally stopped buying the real ones.
What eight small foam pumpkins and thirty leaves actually do for a porch table and a mantel, and the one detail the listing leaves out.
Nine feet of pre-lit spruce, one staircase, and two Christmases of not stringing lights by hand.
Two seasons on one banister, in a hallway with no outlet. Here is what the National Tree Company Crestwood Spruce garland does well, what it does not, and who should walk away from it.
Four seasons in the same front window, one basement trip a year, and no light strands to untangle. Here is what the hykolity 7.5 ft prelit tree does well and where it asks for patience.
Four seasons in the front window, and the parts of owning a prelit tree that the listing photos leave out.
Two falls and two Christmases with nine real wax pillars, a remote, and a timer. What held up, what I would change, and who should skip them.
Two falls, two Christmases, nine wax pillars on one mantel. What the real wax look gets right, and the four things I would want to know before I bought it.
One fabric box, 54 dividers, and the first January in twenty-four years I did not lose an ornament.
One January pack-away and one December unpacking. What fifty round ornaments fit into, what stayed in the cardboard carton, and the two places the listing contradicts itself.
Two falls with the 38 piece DomeStar set on a covered porch and a living room mantel. What the sizes actually are, how the leaves carry the whole thing, and the one fix that keeps it from blowing into the flower bed.
What eight small foam pumpkins and thirty leaves actually do for a porch table and a mantel, and the one detail the listing leaves out.