No-Tree-Christmas

A full tree in a small apartment takes a corner of the room for a month and then a corner of a closet for the rest of the year. If that’s not worth it to you, there are plenty of ways to have something tree-shaped, or at least tree-like, that take up much less space. Things that stand on the floor or a table 1. Lit branches in a vase. A tall vase with battery-lit branches (on Amazon), or real bare branches with a strand of lights wound through. Hang a few light ornaments from them. It takes up about as much floor as a lamp. ...

A 7-foot tree in an apartment takes up around 16 square feet, blocks a window and drops needles into the couch for a month. A well-placed 3-foot tree gives you most of the feeling for a fraction of the space. With small trees, the footprint matters more than the height. A “small” tree with a 30-inch base still takes over a studio. Measure your corner before you shop. Types of small tree Tabletop, 18 to 24 inches. (Example (on Amazon).) About 12 to 18 inches across, so it fits on a sideboard, a shelf or the dining table. Use tiny ornaments, around an inch, and one 20-light strand. In a studio, this plus a wreath on the door is a complete Christmas. ...

A Christmas tree in a small apartment usually means moving a chair into the bedroom for a month, and then finding somewhere to keep the tree for the other eleven. Lots of people skip it, and the apartment can still feel like Christmas. What works instead is decorating the few places you actually look at every day. In most small apartments that’s the front door, the TV stand, the windows, a wall or two, and the coffee table. Get those right and you won’t miss the tree much. ...

When you walk in, you see the window. When you sit on the couch, you see the walls. In a small apartment, those are the surfaces that make it feel like Christmas, and they use no floor space at all. Windows A lit garland around the frame. Run a pre-lit garland (on Amazon) along the top and down the sides with warm-white lights woven through. Three removable hooks per window are enough. A 6-foot garland frames a standard 36-inch window with a little left over to drape at the corners. From outside, it glows. ...

You probably look at your TV stand for a few hours every evening, so if there’s no room for a tree, it’s a good place to put Christmas instead. These ideas are sized for a typical 50 to 65-inch TV setup. A few rules for the whole stand: keep anything tall to the sides so it never blocks the screen, group things in odd numbers, and leave some empty space. ...