Christmas Tree 2013 + a GIVEAWAY!!

The Christmas tree is finally up and decorated and it looks beautiful! There is an interesting story behind this year’s tree that I’d like to share with you (sorry in advance for the length). As you might remember, last year we got a real Christmas tree for the first time and while it looked (and smelled) amazing, I wasn’t a fan of getting it home/watering it/disposing of the tree/cleaning up pine needles all year. So although I was still open to getting a real tree again I also wanted to check out the artificial trees to see if we could find a decent looking one for a good price. Plus, when we went shopping for a tree last Friday night it was approximately 10 degrees outside and looking around outside for trees was not something I wanted to do.

So we checked out Target but we didn’t see any great deals. The cheap trees looked cheap, and the least expensive nice-looking tree was $125 (on sale). So, we headed home empty-handed Friday night. Ben had to work 12 hour days both Saturday and Sunday so we didn’t get a chance to go shopping again until Monday. We checked Hobby Lobby but their trees were way more expensive than what we were looking for. I had done a little research online about where to buy artificial trees and I was surprised to find that Kmart got good reviews, so after we struck out at Hobby Lobby we drove 20 minutes to the nearest Kmart to check out their selection.

Just like the article said, Kmart did have a good selection of trees for very reasonable prices. We liked the 6.5’ pre-lit Cashmere slim pine tree the best and it was on sale for $79.99, score! As we were looking at it a manager walked by and asked if we needed any help, and we said no, we’re just looking at the trees. He hung around and answered some questions, and then he told us that the tree we liked was sold out, but he could sell us the display model. And as a bonus for buying the tree off the floor we also got all of its decorations: the ornaments, ribbons, tree skirt, everything. Although we didn’t really need any of it there was no way we could pass up a beautiful tree for a great price that came with a ton of extra free stuff!

So we stood in the store and packed up all the ornaments off the tree before the manager wheeled the tree out of the store on a pallet for us, then we loaded it up in the car and came home. Since the tree wasn’t boxed up it took no time at all to bring it in and put it together. I absolutely love how it looks!

I did use a lot of the Kmart items: the tree skirt, the ribbon, the bow topper, and a bunch of the ornaments. I also mixed in a lot of my ornaments though so that it didn’t look like it still belonged on the Kmart sales floor.

Looks great don’t you think? And it goes really well with my mantle décor too.

 

GIVEAWAY!

Now here’s the fun part for you: I have a lot of the Kmart ornaments left and I’d love to give them away to a lucky reader! I know that Target gets all the love for big-box store décor but I was very pleasantly surprised at how cute these ornaments from Kmart are.

So if you win you’ll get 12 ornaments from the Jaclyn Smith Midnight Clear collection: two frosted snowflakes, two acrylic snowflakes, two tiny cottages, two silver glitter starbursts, two bird in hat ornaments, and two white feather owls. In addition to the ornament you’ll also get the same Jaclyn Smith tree topper bow that I have on my tree. The whole package adds up to over $50 full retail value!

To enter just leave a comment with an answer to the question: Where is your favorite place to buy Christmas ornaments? Also please be sure to include your email address in your comment!

The giveaway is open to anyone who lives within the continental U.S. A winner will be chosen at random from all comments entered before 11 p.m. CT on Sunday, December 15.

Good luck!

 

P.S. This post and giveaway are in no way sponsored by Kmart, I just wanted to share some of my good fortune with you!