The best tabletop Christmas trees, ranked on published tips and lights

How we ranked these

Published tip count, light provision per tip, what comes in the box, and how complete the specification is. Every figure below is one the listing prints; the per-foot and per-100 conversions are ours.

Why the full-size density bands do not apply here

This site’s stated bands — under 150 tips per foot is sparse, 175 to 225 is normal, over 275 is very full — are for trees you buy by the foot of height. Every tree on this page is between 35 and 50 tips per foot, which by those bands would be absurdly sparse.

It is not, because a two-foot tree is also a narrow tree. Density is really tips per unit of surface, and a 24-inch tree has a fraction of the surface of a 7.5-foot one. Compare these trees against each other, not against the numbers on tree size and tip count — that page is the reference for full-size trees.

Lights per tip matters more at three feet

On a small tree the bulbs are individually visible, so a low count does not read as a dimmer tree — it reads as a tree with gaps in the lighting. Only the Okicoler at 44 and the Goplus at 49 publish both the numbers the ratio needs, and 44 is adequate on a tree this size rather than generous. The DTNESS carries the most lights of any tree here at 60, but it counts branch heads rather than tips, so it cannot be placed on the same scale.

The Goplus at 49 per 100 tips is the thinnest here, and 35 LEDs on a 24-inch tree is genuinely few. It is buying its place in this table on its base rather than its lighting.

Battery life is the spec nobody publishes

Every tree here is battery operated and every one of them states a 6-hour-on, 18-hour-off timer. None of them publishes a runtime in days, so we print none.

What can be reasoned about is load against cells: 60 LEDs on three AA cells is a harder job than 50 LEDs on four. Six hours a night through December is roughly 180 hours of running, which is a lot for alkaline AAs at either load — buy rechargeables at the same time as the tree. The plug-in-versus-battery trade generally is on battery vs plug-in decorations.

The base is half the object at this size

On a full-size tree the base is hidden under a skirt. At two feet the base is a visible part of the design, and the three finishes here behave differently.

Burlap — the OasisCraft and the Leeheeyee — is a finished look that needs nothing added. Cement, on the Goplus, is the only weighted base in the group and the only one that will not tip when something brushes it, which matters on a mantel or a shelf with a cat in the house.

The OasisCraft’s published 22 in base width is worth a second look. That is nearly as wide as the tree is tall, which gives it the fullest silhouette here and the largest footprint — measure the table before ordering it.

Decorating a two-foot tree

The site’s ornament convention is 12 to 25 per vertical foot depending on how full you want it, which puts a two-foot tree at 24 to 50 ornaments. No tree on this page ships with ornaments any more — the 80-ornament set is discontinued — so budget for two dozen small ones on top of the tree.

Scale is the thing people get wrong. Standard 3-inch ornaments on a 24-inch tree read as enormous; the small end of an ornament box is what this tree wants. The full method is on how many ornaments for a tree and decorating a tree, step by step.

Who a tabletop tree is actually for

Three buyers, and they want different trees. Someone with no floor space wants the fullest silhouette, which is the OasisCraft. Someone adding a second tree to a mantel or an entry table wants the one that will not fall over, which is the Goplus. Someone buying a tree for a desk, a dorm or a rental wants it finished in one box, which is the 100-tip set with its 80 ornaments.

If the constraint is floor space rather than surface space, a tabletop tree is not actually the answer — slim and pencil trees give you full height in a narrow footprint, which is usually what a small room needs.

Storing a small tree

A two-foot pre-lit tree stores whole, which is the one real advantage it has over everything else in this category. Keep the batteries out of it — alkaline cells left in a decoration for eleven months are the most common way a working tree becomes a dead one.

Beyond that, treat it as any other artificial tree: how to store an artificial tree, and if space is the reason you bought a small tree in the first place, small-space decor storage.