The Complete Christmas Buying Guide: Christmas Trees, Lights and Decorations

Heavins has been selling Christmas trees, lights and decorations in Athlone since 1984. Most of what follows is the advice we end up giving across the counter every November, written down in one place. Use the menu below to jump to whichever part you are stuck on.

Jump to What You Need:

What Size Christmas Tree Do You Need?

Measure floor to ceiling first, then take off at least 30cm. That allowance covers the stand, which lifts the tree off the floor, and the star or topper, which needs clearance so it is not bent against the ceiling. A room with a 2.4 metre ceiling comfortably takes a 7ft tree, not an 8ft one.

Width matters just as much and is the measurement most people forget. An 8ft tree can be 113cm across or 70cm across depending on whether it is a standard fir or a pencil shape. If the tree is going into a corner or a bay window, the width decides whether it fits, not the height.

Specifications are a general guide and can change. Check each product page for the latest details.

Best 6ft and 7ft Christmas Trees

This is the size most households buy, and for good reason: a 7ft artificial Christmas tree reads as a proper Christmas tree without crowding a standard living room. The 6ft option is the safer choice for apartments and smaller sitting rooms, or anywhere the tree has to share the room with furniture that is not moving.

The thing worth comparing is tip count against width. A tree with more tips packed into a narrower frame looks dense and formal. A tree with fewer tips spread wider has open branching, which leaves room for baubles and ornaments to hang freely and lets light through from the inside out. Neither is better, they just suit different decorating styles.

Specifications are a general guide and can change. Check each product page for the latest details.

Best 8ft, 9ft and 10ft Christmas Trees

Once you go past 8ft, two things change. The tree gets dramatically wider, so floor space becomes the limiting factor rather than ceiling height, and the weight goes up enough that assembly is a two-person job. A 10ft Christmas tree can weigh over 30kg boxed and spread nearly two metres across the floor.

These sizes suit entrance halls, stairwells and open-plan rooms where a standard tree would look undersized. Check the width figure in the table below against the actual floor area you have, measured out with a tape, before committing to anything above 8ft.

Specifications are a general guide and can change. Check each product page for the latest details.

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Slim and Pencil Christmas Trees for Tight Spaces

A slim or pencil Christmas tree gives you full height in a fraction of the floor space. An 8ft pencil pine is about 70cm wide, against 113cm for a standard 8ft fir. That difference is what makes a full-height tree possible in a hallway, a bay window, or a room where a wide tree would block a doorway. A half Christmas tree, which is flat on one side, goes a step further for a narrow hall table or a tight alcove.

The trade-off is density. Narrower trees carry fewer branches, so they hold fewer decorations and look sparser if you overload them. Lighter dressing suits them better, and a dense light set does more for a pencil tree than a heavy bauble collection would.

Specifications are a general guide and can change. Check each product page for the latest details.

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Snowy and Frosted Christmas Trees

Snowy, frosted and flocked Christmas trees split opinion, and the difference between a good one and a cheap one comes down to where the snow sits. On the better trees the flocking is concentrated at the branch tips, the way snow actually settles on a real tree outdoors. On weaker ones it is sprayed evenly over everything, which reads as artificial from across the room.

A snowy tree also changes how your lights and decorations look. Warm white against a frosted branch gives a soft, cold-morning effect, while multi-coloured sets can fight with the white finish. Silver, ice blue and clear glass baubles suit a snowy tree; deep reds and golds tend to look better on a plain green one.

Specifications are a general guide and can change. Check each product page for the latest details.

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Pre-Lit vs Unlit Christmas Trees

A pre-lit Christmas tree has the lights wired into the branches at the factory, so it is ready the moment it is assembled. An unlit tree is a blank canvas you light yourself. Both are valid, and the right answer depends on how much you care about changing the look year to year.

Specifications are a general guide and can change. Check each product page for the latest details.

We currently stock one pre-lit tree, the Everlands Snowy Killington Fir Pre-Lit 7.5ft, which carries 440 warm white and multi-colour LEDs on an eight-function controller with a built-in timer and a foot switch. It is 7.5ft tall and 110cm wide. Stock on it is limited.

How to Put Lights on a Christmas Tree

The most common mistake is buying one set of Christmas tree lights and spreading it thin. Standard string lights space their bulbs around 10cm apart. Dense tree sets space them 2.5cm apart, which puts roughly four times as many lights on every metre of cable, and that is the single biggest difference between a tree that looks finished and one that looks patchy.

How Many Christmas Lights Does Your Tree Need?

Work from lit length rather than a rule of thumb. The figures below are the manufacturer's own guidance for each size of set.

Specifications are a general guide and can change. Check each product page for the latest details.

If you prefer the older rule, around 100 standard bulbs per foot of tree is the traditional starting point, so a 6ft tree takes roughly 600 and a 7ft tree roughly 700. Dense LED sets comfortably exceed that, which is why a single 1,000 LED set covers a 7ft tree where three standard sets would not.

Working From the Trunk Outwards

Start at the bottom and work up in a spiral, pushing the cable in towards the trunk before bringing it back out along each branch. Lighting the inside of the tree as well as the outside is what creates depth, and it is the step most people skip. A tree lit only on its outer edge looks flat once it gets dark.

Plug the set in and test it before you start wrapping. Position the transformer end nearest the socket you will actually use, and run the lead down the back of the tree where it will not be seen. Lights go on before decorations, always. Trying to thread a cable through a tree already hung with baubles is how baubles get broken.

Warm White, Cool White or Multi-Coloured?

Warm white is the traditional choice and the safest. It reads as candlelight, flatters a green tree, and sits well with gold, red and natural wood decorations. Cool or bright white is crisper and more modern, and it is the better pairing for a snowy or frosted tree and for silver and ice blue decorations. Multi-coloured Christmas lights are the nostalgic option and suit a family tree hung with a mix of decorations collected over years rather than a single colour scheme.

Whichever you pick, do not mix warm white and cool white on the same tree. Side by side the warm set looks yellow and dirty rather than cosy. If you want both looks across the house, use one on the tree and the other on a garland or in a window.

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Types of Christmas Lights Explained

The names on the boxes describe how the bulbs are arranged, not just how bright they are. Knowing which is which saves buying the wrong thing for the job.

String, Fairy and Microbright Lights

Standard string or fairy lights are the general-purpose set: evenly spaced bulbs on a length of cable, suitable for a tree, a mantelpiece, a bannister or a window. Microbright lights use very small bulbs on a fine wire, which almost disappears in daylight and suits a mantelpiece display or a glass vase where you do not want to see the cable.

Cluster Lights

Cluster Christmas lights bunch many small LEDs tightly together along the cable, so a short length carries a very high bulb count. The effect is a dense, almost continuous glow rather than distinct points of light. They work well on a tree where you want serious impact without three separate sets, and on a garland or a wreath where the cable length is short.

Icicle and Curtain Lights

Icicle lights hang in dropping strands of varying length, designed to run along a gutter, a porch edge or the top of a window frame. Outdoor icicle lights are the most common way to light the front of a house. Curtain and net lights use a grid rather than a single line, so they cover a whole window or a hedge evenly. Net lights in particular are the quickest way to light a bush or a small shrub, because you simply lay the grid over it rather than winding a string around it.

Candle Bridges, Lanterns and Light-Up Decorations

A candle bridge, or candle arch, is the arched row of lights that sits on a windowsill, a fixture in Irish and Northern European homes and one of the simplest ways to make a house look festive from the road. Christmas lanterns, star and snowflake silhouettes, and larger light-up Christmas decorations such as illuminated reindeer or standing figures do a similar job for a porch, a driveway or a garden.

Do Christmas Tree Lights Use a Lot of Electricity?

No. Modern LED Christmas lights use a small fraction of what the old filament sets used, and running a tree for the whole season costs less than most people assume. Running figures published by Electric Ireland are shown on the individual product pages for our tree light sets, so you can check the exact cost of the set you are considering.

Three things keep the cost down. LEDs draw far less power than incandescent bulbs for the same brightness. The sets run on safe extra low voltage through a transformer rather than straight off the mains. And a built-in timer means the lights run eight hours a day rather than twenty-four, which cuts the bill by two thirds on its own without you having to remember anything.

Outdoor Christmas Lights and Decorations

Outdoor Christmas lights are the part people most often get wrong, usually by buying an indoor set and hoping. An Irish December brings wind, sideways rain and long damp spells, so the question is not whether the lights will get wet but whether they are built to be.

What to Check Before You Buy

Check the set is rated for outdoor use, and look for an IP rating on the box. IP44 means the set resists splashing from any direction, which covers normal rain. The transformer is the part that is not weatherproof on most sets: it needs to sit indoors, or inside a proper weatherproof enclosure, even when the lights themselves are rated for outside. A weatherproof connection box with a sealed lid is an inexpensive thing to get right and the most common point of failure when people get it wrong.

Mains, Battery or Solar?

Mains-powered outdoor Christmas lights are the right default. They are brighter, they do not fade through the evening, and with a timer they look after themselves. The limitation is that you need a safe route to a socket.

Battery-operated Christmas lights are the answer for a wreath, a window, a porch or anywhere with no socket in reach. They are genuinely useful, with the caveat that cold weather shortens battery life, so expect to change them more often outdoors than in. Look for a timer function, because it is doing double duty on a battery set by preserving the cells.

Solar outdoor Christmas lights are the honest disappointment of the category in this country. Ireland in December gets short days and heavy cloud, which is precisely when a solar panel has least to work with. They will light, but expect a dimmer output and a shorter run each evening than the box suggests. If a cable can reach, use mains.

How to Hang Outdoor Christmas Lights

Plan the run before you climb anything. Measure the length you want to cover and add the distance back to the socket, because the lead between the plug and the first bulb is often five metres and is not lit. Use proper gutter clips or hooks rather than nails or staples, which pierce the cable and create exactly the fault you do not want in wet weather.

Work along a gutter line, a porch edge or a window frame rather than freehand across a wall, because a straight line reads as deliberate from the road and a sagging one does not. Never run a cable across a path or a driveway where it can be walked on or driven over, and use an outdoor rated extension lead rather than an indoor one with a cover over it.

Outdoor Decorations Beyond the Lights

Beyond string lights, outdoor Christmas decorations run from the understated to the full display: a lit wreath on the door, a garland along a porch rail, illuminated silhouettes and light-up figures on a lawn, inflatable decorations, and lit trees or shrubs either side of a door. If you are starting from nothing, a door wreath and one set of icicle lights along the front gutter gets you most of the effect for the least work.

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How to Decorate a Christmas Tree

There is no single correct way, but there is an order that makes the job easier and the result better: lights, then garland or ribbon, then the large baubles, then the smaller ones, then the tree topper last. Working the other way round means reaching past things you have already hung.

How Many Baubles Does a Christmas Tree Need?

More than most people use. A rough guide is around 20 baubles per foot of tree height for a full look, so roughly 120 on a 6ft tree and 140 on a 7ft tree, counting every decoration rather than just the round ones. A sparser, more traditional look uses closer to 10 per foot. A slim or pencil tree needs fewer again, because the branches are shorter and crowding them makes the tree look heavier rather than fuller.

Mix sizes rather than using one. Large baubles go deeper into the tree near the trunk, where they catch the light and create depth; medium ones sit in the middle of the branch; small ones go out at the tips. A tree hung entirely with same-size decorations along the outer edge looks flat, which is the most common reason a well-stocked tree still looks thin.

Choosing a Colour Scheme

Two colours plus a metallic is the easiest scheme to get right: red and green with gold, navy and silver, or blush and rose gold. Pick the metallic to match your lights, so gold with warm white and silver with cool white. A family tree hung with decorations collected over years does not need a scheme at all, and trying to impose one usually makes it worse.

If you want the collected look to feel less random, tie it together with a single repeated element: the same ribbon throughout, or plain baubles in one colour filling the gaps between the sentimental pieces.

Ribbon, Garland and the Tree Topper

Christmas tree ribbon goes on after the lights and before the baubles. Rather than winding it tightly around the tree like tinsel, cut it into lengths and tuck it in and out of the branches in loose vertical waves, so it disappears into the tree and reappears. That reads as depth. Wrapping it round and round reads as a stripe.

The tree topper goes on last, and whether it is a star, an angel or a bow, it needs clearance above it. If the topper is squashed against the ceiling the whole tree looks too big for the room, which is the argument for the 30cm allowance in the sizing section above.

How to Make a Christmas Tree Look Fuller

Shaping matters more than anything you hang on it. After assembly, work from the bottom branches upward, separating and fanning out each branch tip rather than leaving them folded flat from the box. On a large tree this takes fifteen to twenty minutes and makes more difference than an extra box of decorations would.

Beyond that: light the inside of the tree as well as the outside, push the larger baubles deeper towards the trunk, and fill gaps near the centre with plain decorations in a dark colour that absorb light rather than reflect it.

Christmas Tree Skirts and Finishing the Base

The base is the one part of an artificial tree that never looks convincing, because the stand and the bare trunk are visible from across the room. A Christmas tree skirt or collar closes that off, and it gives presents a defined place to sit rather than spilling across the floor.

Skirts and collars are sized by diameter, and most fit trees up to 8ft. A fabric or willow skirt lies flat on the floor and suits a traditional or natural look; a metal collar stands up around the stand and reads as sharper and more modern, and usually folds flat for storage. On a snowy tree, a lighter natural finish works better than a dark one. Fit it before you put the presents out, because threading one under a dressed tree is awkward.

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Christmas Wreaths, Garlands and Door Decorations

A wreath on the door and a garland on the stairs do more for how Christmassy a house feels than anything except the tree itself, because they are what people see first.

Christmas Door Wreaths

A door wreath is measured by diameter, and the usual mistake is going too small. A standard front door suits a wreath of roughly 50cm to 60cm. Anything under 45cm tends to look lost on a full-size door, though it works well on an internal door, a window or above a fireplace. Larger doors and double doors carry 75cm and up comfortably.

Artificial wreaths last for years and hold their shape through wind and rain, which matters on an exposed front door. A fresh Christmas wreath smells better and looks softer but will dry out across the season, particularly beside a heated hall. A lit wreath, with battery lights built in, is worth the extra on a door that faces the road, and a timer saves you switching it on and off in the cold. Hang it on a proper over-door hanger rather than a nail, so you are not making a hole in the door for one month a year.

Stair and Mantelpiece Garlands

A Christmas garland is sold by length, typically around 9ft, which is enough for a standard mantelpiece or roughly half a flight of stairs. Measure the bannister along its slope rather than the floor length, and buy two if you want to run the full flight, because joining two garlands is easy and stretching one is not.

For a stair garland, secure it at the top of the bannister first and work down, fixing at intervals with florist wire or cable ties, then let it swag gently between the fixing points rather than pulling it taut. On a mantelpiece, let both ends drop below the shelf line so the garland frames the fireplace instead of sitting on top of it like a shelf.

Lit or Unlit?

A garland with lights already built in saves threading a separate set through dense foliage, which is fiddly. If you are lighting one yourself, a cluster set is the better choice than a standard string because the short, dense cable suits the shape. Battery sets suit a wreath and a stair garland, where there is rarely a socket where you need it, and a mains set suits a mantelpiece, where there usually is.

Christmas Decorations Around the Rest of the Home

Once the tree, the door and the stairs are done, the rest is a matter of a few well-chosen pieces rather than filling every surface.

Windows

Windows are the part of your decorating that the street sees, and the easiest to get a lot from. A candle bridge on the sill is the traditional Irish choice. Christmas window lights, curtain lights or a lit silhouette work on larger windows, and a small wreath or a few hanging decorations suit a window that is seen mostly from inside.

Tables, Mantelpieces and Surfaces

A table centrepiece, Christmas lanterns, candles and small figures do the work here. Keep one surface deliberately clear: a room where every flat surface carries something festive reads as cluttered rather than decorated, and you still need somewhere to put a cup down.

Stockings, Crackers and the Table on the Day

Christmas stockings on the mantelpiece, crackers on the table and a run of wrapping paper and gift bags are the last layer, and they are the ones to buy earlier than you think. These are the lines that sell out first in December, because everyone needs them in the same fortnight.

Large and Floor-Standing Decorations

Floor-standing Christmas decorations, standing figures, light-up ornaments and larger pieces work in an entrance hall, at the foot of the stairs or either side of a door, where there is room to see them properly. In a normal-sized sitting room they compete with the tree rather than adding to it.

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Buying Christmas Decorations in Athlone

Heavins is on Shannon Retail Park in Athlone, and our full Christmas range, trees, lights and decorations, is in store from early November. If you are within driving distance it is worth seeing the trees assembled before you buy, because tip count and branch density are much easier to judge in person than from a photograph. The difference between a tree with 861 tips and one with 1,529 is obvious standing in front of them.

Everything in this guide can be ordered online and collected in store, which is the quickest option if you already know what you want. Larger trees above 8ft are heavy and awkward to move, so bring a second pair of hands and check your boot space before travelling.

We are a family-run Irish retailer and have been trading in Athlone since 1984. If you are not sure which size tree suits your room or how many lights it needs, call in and ask. We would rather help you work it out than have you take home something that does not fit.

When to Take Down Your Christmas Tree and How to Store It

The traditional answer is the 6th of January, the twelfth day of Christmas. In Ireland that day is Little Christmas, or Nollaig na mBan, Women's Little Christmas, which historically gave women a rest after the work of the season while the men took over the house. It is still marked in parts of Cork and Kerry, and for most households it remains the day the Christmas decorations come down.

The older superstition says leaving decorations up past the 6th brings bad luck for the year. Whether or not you hold with that, it is a sensible deadline: the longer a tree stays up, the more dust settles into the branches, and the more likely the packing-away job gets rushed.

Packing the Tree Away Properly

Fold the hinged branches back in towards the trunk before you separate the sections. Forcing a section into a box with the branches still fanned out is what bends the wire frame, and a bent frame never sits right again. Work from the top section down, the reverse of how you put it up.

Store it somewhere dry. Damp does more damage to an artificial Christmas tree than age does: it is what degrades the frosted finish on a snowy tree and what leaves a musty smell that will not shift by the following December. An unheated attic is usually fine. A garage with a damp floor is not, unless the tree is in a sealed container.

Storing Lights, Baubles and Everything Else

Loop light sets loosely around your forearm or a piece of card rather than bundling them, and keep the transformer and controller with the set. A tangled set is the single most common reason people replace working lights. Keep each set in its own smaller box so you are not untangling three at once next year.

Decorations go into the container before the tree, not after. Pack the heavier items at the bottom, wrap glass baubles individually, and keep anything fragile in a separate small box rather than loose in the big one. Wreaths and garlands keep their shape better stored flat than squashed.

A wheeled storage trunk is worth it if the box is going up to an attic or out to a garage, because a full container of decorations is heavier than people expect. Check the internal dimensions against the packed length of your tree sections before buying one to hold the tree itself.

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