Depending on your point of view it is either genius or a depressing idea but retailers are now selling cut-in-half artificial Christmas trees that can be hung on the wall in smaller homes.
The attraction of half a tree is that it cuts the need to wrestle with loops of fairy lights or hang baubles where they’ll never be seen while the smaller footprint means there is no need to move all the furniture around your living room to fit it in.
On the back of this trend, fake trees at Argos come in three shapes: full, slim and “split in half”. The last classification includes half-trees that hang from a hook and sit flush against the wall, plus parasol-shaped trees where the branches start halfway up so the baubles and tinsel are out of the grasp of curious children and pets.
A 6ft “half” fake fir on the Argos website has received hundreds of enthusiastic reviews from shoppers. With 120 built-in fairy lights, the Habitat brand tree promises to be “hassle free” and measures 45cm from front-to-back. The £55 tree slice sits against the wall so there is less decorating involved, with the retailer saying: “Who looks at the back of their tree anyway?”. However, buying half a tree doesn’t necessarily work out cheaper as you can buy a whole Habitat tree for £40.
One customer, who was after a “small tree for a tight corner” that could take the strain of her heavy ornaments gives it a rave write-up: “This works brilliantly. I was so impressed I bought two.” Another describes the half-tree as a win as her cat usually destroys the tree but she didn’t touch this one, adding it also looks “super cute”.
Three-quarters of Britons told Argos they struggled to fit a Christmas tree in their house and had to swap out furniture. It is not the only retailer hoping to cash in on demand for half a tree, with Amazon, Asda and Wilko among other stockists.
With the tree the focal point of the living room at Christmas, cutting them in half is not the only new idea. The garden centre chain Dobbies suggests hanging a small tree from your ceiling to create the wow factor in a small space.
