2ft Christmas trees

Choosing a 2ft tree

At this height the choice is less about tip counts and more about what the tree has to do. If it is going on a surface that already has a lamp or a plant, a pre-dressed tree with a fabric base is finished the moment it is out of the box. If it is going in a window to be seen from the street, a shimmer cone or a microdot tree, which is all light and no foliage, shows up better after dark than a small green tree does. If there is no socket nearby, pick a battery model: three AA cells typically run the micro LEDs for six hours a night on a timer for most of December.

Lights on a 2ft tree

Twenty to a hundred micro LEDs is the usual count on a pre-lit tree this size, and it is plenty. A 2ft tree with 400 LEDs, such as the white star shimmer cone, is a light rather than a tree and is meant to be looked at rather than decorated. If you buy an unlit 2ft tree, a 20 or 30 LED battery string wraps it twice and leaves nothing trailing.

Decorating

Use the smallest baubles you can find: 3cm and 4cm. Ten to fifteen is enough. A 2ft tree takes a star topper of 10cm at most; anything bigger tips the proportions. Ribbon is better than tinsel at this scale because it lies flat on short branches.

Where 2ft trees go wrong

Two things disappoint people. The first is buying a 2ft tree for a floor position, where it disappears behind furniture; a 2ft tree needs to be raised to around eye level, which is why most have a weighted base rather than a stand. The second is expecting a 60cm tree to look like a miniature 6ft tree: the small ones are built with fewer, shorter branches and a simpler profile, and the better ones lean into that with a pot, a bow or built-in lights rather than pretending to be bigger.

Larger alternatives

If you have a little more room, the 3ft trees stand 90cm and include potted trees for a doorstep. If you want a 2ft tree for several rooms, the sets of three cone trees cost less per tree than buying singly.