We researched artificial Christmas trees online to see what other publications and user reviews had to say, and then lined up the 10 most popular and talked-about trees.
Among them were Balsam Hill’s Classic Blue Spruce, National Tree Company’s enduring favorite Dunhill Fir, and an Amazon best-seller you can get for under $300.
All trees were the same height at 7.5 feet, and judged under the same studio lighting and free of ornaments. The prices ranged from $170 to $1,700. (All prices shown below are for 7.5-foot-tall trees.) We accepted review samples of seven of the trees and purchased the other three. In the end, we had $9,540 worth of trees assembled in a rented studio.
The trees were delivered to my home and then transported to a photo studio in Overland Park, Kansas, where 10 testers gathered on a Wednesday morning. Everything, from assembly to evaluation, was monitored and done under controlled conditions to ensure a fair comparison. The studio had one wall of windows letting in natural light, with the remaining space enclosed by walls and lit by white-hued recessed ceiling lights. We kept those overhead lights on throughout building and judging so the judges could properly assess needle structure, branch density, and overall shape without any atmospheric lighting skewing results.
The assemblers knew which brand and model of tree they had, but were not told about the cost or reputation. Some of the trees came with included gloves to help in the fluffing process, but we issued utilitarian latex utility gloves to anyone who didn’t have them, along with scissors and box cutters to help with unboxing. As timekeeper, I hauled empty boxes out of the space to ensure each assembler could put up their tree unobstructed. Tree stands were built, branches carefully unpacked and snapped into the tree base, then fluffed and bent into shape in time for the judges to arrive. Assemblers had an hour and a half to unbox, unload, build, and fluff each tree, and most were fully assembled in about 45 minutes.
Once the trees were ready, three judges—interior designers from Kansas City-based firm ML Designs—arrived to evaluate them and pick the best fake Christmas tree.