We were sent our gorgeous tree free of charge by Pines and Needles for this review – all opinions are my own 

First off, please accept my apologies for the photos of the tree. I should point out that mine is a *cough* lived-in, family home so that is what you get I’m afraid! I don’t have a conservatory or anything posh like that. Just a bay window with my Sky hub and lots of wires and mess!

This is the first real Christmas tree we’ve had as a family and ordering it online to be delivered was so simple

Ordering your real Christmas Tree online from Pines and Needles website:

Pines and Needles have a really easy to use website. You simply choose the type of tree you would like from the drop down box from a large variety of both indoor and outdoor trees, they even have trees still in their pots. For indoor trees they have Nordmann Fir which is very popular as it is considered to be non-drop, so this is what we have.

Then you choose the ideal size for your home (or shop or office) they range from 3ft all the way up to 12 ft. We opted for 6ft. Our artificial tree is 7 ft but it is a typical artificial shape, tall and slim. I was aware that real trees tend to be fatter, or wider.

There is a tree in there, honestly

As well as Christmas Trees Pines and Needles have a great range of Christmas accessories

If you are buying a real tree then you will need a water holding stand to keep it alive for as long as possible. They can also provide tree skirts, lights, wreaths and more so it well worth browsing while you are online and getting everything delivered together

When you have everything in your Pines and Needles basket you can choose a delivery type and date to suit you

I had courier drop off by 6pm – this does mean you have to stay in but there are other options such as by 10.30am or Saturday delivery, obviously these come at a price. 

Luckily it gave me the excuse not to do the school run and instead I stayed at home and cleared the space ready for the tree. Win, win in my book!

Our bare Christmas tree

Our real Christmas tree from Pines and Needles was delivered by a lovely courier at about 2pm

It was surprisingly weighty, I know, it is a tree after all, but it did come as a shock.

It comes wrapped in plastic – looking not too dissimilar to a body bag! I would recommend unwrapping it on an easy clean surface or outside, it does drop a fair bit at first. As you would if you had just traveled the length of the country!

Under the plastic wrapping is netting – like you see in the shop, once you remove that the full glory of your tree is revealed. It kind of flops into place.

Our decorated tree

It is recommended that you trim 2cm off the trunk but we don’t have a saw so we are hoping it will survive the 4 weeks to Christmas despite that. We were provided with a water holding stand to keep our tree fresh for as long as possible. The stand has spikes in the bottom which go into the tree trunk to ensure it receives water. We have put two pints of water in and topped it up daily. The stand has three bolts to keep your real Christmas tree upright. It is really simple to use – even I managed it.

We are a week in and our real tree from Pines and Needles is still looking glorious and the smell is divine

Apologies, my not very instagrammable house hasn’t done it justice, but you get the jist.

It is being watered daily and we made sure to turn the radiator off behind it and wear thicker jumpers to keep warm! 

If you would like to order your living Christmas tree to be delivered you can use this link directly to Pines and Needles and use the code FESTIVE19 for a free gift