With our recent downsize to a one-bedroom apartment, my Christmas tree dreams had to downsize as well. I have always been all about “the bigger the better” with Christmas. I love a real, massive tree with tons of decorations, but I have been learning a lot this past year about sticking to my budget and making my decorations/designs functional for where I am in life. Decorating and design does not need to be extravagant or expensive. It should match your budget and your lifestyle. Living on one income and living in a one-bedroom apartment meant I needed a tree on sale with a small footprint to fit next to my buffet. I didn’t want something too short and small, but also nothing too wide and overwhelming for our space.

I started looking into fake trees, because most real trees are too big around. If you know me, this was a big step for me! I follow a blogger named Lauren McBride, and I fell in love with her flocked Christmas trees from King of Christmas. I found the flocked pencil tree on their website that was the perfect size to fit next to my buffet, and it was also on a great sale! To save money, I purchased the unlit version and just used my own lights. The widest part of the pencil tree is 22”, and I purchased the 6’ tree so it fits into small spaces but doesn’t look like I skimped on size.

Okay, first impressions: this is a high quality Christmas tree! The flocking is beautiful and looks just as amazing in daylight unlit as it does in the evening with the Christmas lights on. With flocked Christmas trees, I feel you could get away with no decorations, because they are so pretty as is. The pencil tree, however, is a little too skinny to go without decorations, in my opinion. So, I balanced it out with ribbon and ornaments.

The only con I found with the tree was that the stand that comes with the tree was not completely level. One leg was ½” off the floor, while the others were level. It’s not a deal breaker though, because I just tucked some of my tree skirt under to balance it out. This tree is fantastic quality and exactly what I wanted. I’m excited that it won’t be slowly dying throughout the season and that I can use it for years to come!