The holidays may be over, but there are some lights that I’m keeping up all winter!

At the top of that list are these trees. I have them in pots outside our front door, and it adds just enough sparkle to make the long winter evenings special.

When ordering these trees, I didn’t realize how particular my tastes were until a few different models arrived… and they just weren’t right.
The Hairui models that I’m linking to throughout this post is my absolute favorite. There are a few different sizes. I bought the 4 foot trees, which are currently out of stock (and that was a problem throughout the holiday season – hopefully there will be more in stock soon!).

The Hairui 4 ft model has 72 lights, and then their larger trees have more lights. There are other producers that sell 4 ft trees with 160 lights (160!). It’s blinding. I know, because at one point when the Hairui trees weren’t available, I bought one with double the lights, and I’m still seeing stars.

Besides the light count, the other main difference that I noticed between trees is that some, like this one, end each branch tip with a light. Others will have branch ends that end without lights. And some of those will have branches that awkwardly transition from thicker branches to ends that are wire thin (and again, those wire ends don’t have lights). All-in-all, it just looked more shoddily designed.

My only frustration with my favorite model is that its stock on Amazon is always absurdly low and I haven’t found another reliable place to buy them. Luckily you have 11 whole months to track some down before next winter.