How We’d Get a Smart Christmas Tree at the Last Minute

Christmas gear sells out. Every. Single. Year. This season, the best fake trees were gone by Thanksgiving. Home Depot never even had the good lights. By the time you read this post, stock on our picks is probably as sparse as Santa’s sleigh by sunrise.

Beyond being hard to find come December, our picks, as great as they are, do have limits. If you want a smart Christmas tree—one that you can turn on and off with your phone or voice commands—there’s not much out there for you right now. The Mr. Christmas Alexa tree is about it, and this one has pretty poor reviews so far. The lights on the best artificial Christmas trees have great options for switching between white and multicolor modes, but if you simply want to show a single color (only red, only blue), it’s pretty slim pickings.

Thinking over these two problems, we came up with a compromise solution that could potentially offer more customization over your Christmas tree than anything you can buy off the shelf. This solution creates more work, and it may cost more, but it’s offbeat enough that you may still be able to find the parts you need, even in mid-December.

Step one

Get an unlit tree from our artificial Christmas tree guide—either our budget pick, the Home Accents Holiday 7.5-foot Unlit Dunhill Fir, or the unlit version of our pick, the National Tree Company 7.5-foot Feel Real Downswept Douglas Fir. Most people want a pre-lit tree, so these unlit options usually remain available for longer. And, of course, you could use a real Christmas tree for this project—you can find them at the last minute, and they all come unlit!

Step two

Get some lights. The big-box stores usually sell out of their seasonal supplies by December, but you may have better luck at a specialty retailer we recommend in the guide to the best Christmas lights—either Christmas Designers or Christmas Lights Etc. Most people want the warm white or multicolor lights we recommend, and that would certainly keep things simple. If they’re gone, though, you could really make this special—especially if you get a big tree—with single-color styles, like all-blue or all-red lights. Whatever you get, aim for variety, since you will need multiple kinds of lights for this to have the maximum impact.

Step three

Get the smart power strip we recommend in the guide to the best smart outlets.¹ Our multi-plug pick, the Kasa, has individual control over each of its six outlets. Plug each color of lights into its own outlet: The run of white lights gets its own outlet, the multicolor gets it own, the red, the blue, and so on. On the power strip’s app, you can name the outlets—multicolor lights, warm white, red, blue—and then you can use the app (or voice commands) to turn them all on or to select certain ones. In effect, by selecting different combinations of lights to turn on, you can have the tree “change colors.” If you have a white strand and a red strand in the mix, for example, you could have the tree be only red and white for a night.

Obviously, this can get to be a lot of wires, so consider whether your tree is big enough for this to work without it looking terribly crowded, and whether you have a place to conceal the Kasa so you don’t see a nest of wires all tangled up in the tree skirt. Even if you skip the whole single-color thing and just use white or multicolor strands (maybe some that you already own), the Kasa power strip can still add smart control over the tree. If the only actionable advice you get from this story is the tip to buy the Kasa, you could just add that, and upgrade a tree you already set up back around Thanksgiving. Smart controls are a great convenience (when you’re in bed and you realize you left the tree on), and they can also improve home security during holiday travel (because you can control the lights, via your phone, when you’re away). But here’s the dream: If you can pull off the command “Alexa, turn on the Christmas tree,” it’ll be a charming enough feat to grow the Grinch’s heart by three sizes that day (or that of a smart-home skeptic, for that matter).

Footnotes

1. Please, retail gods, we understand about the lights and the tree, but please let the blasted power strip remain available through the holidays.
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