Cheap, Easy, Natural Christmas Tree and Decorations for Small Spaces

Our apartment is not large. Also, many rental apartments don't allow for Christmas trees because they're considered a fire hazard. Some people also don't want the hassle of putting up trees, or finding space for one. So what does one do in such cases?

Well, you could buy a nice little potted plant. My mom did that for us. She bought a beautiful little rosemary tree and we decorated it last month. Sadly, however, it died (I think it was left standing in water too long and got root rot).

Since I wanted something to decorate the place for Christmas, and since we were having the family over for a Christmas brunch, I needed a quick fix. I needed a cheap, easy, natural Christmas tree.

So I grabbed a pair of snippers and headed out back of our apartment... This is what I came up with ...


Luckily we live near a couple of wooded areas, so it wasn't hard to find some cedar and holly trees. I also thought about picking just a couple of fern leaves to fill things out, but didn't feel like walking too far.

So I just snipped a couple of branches, trimmed off the bottom leaves, and stuck them in a nice glass vase along with some plastic oranges that I'd gotten as a gag gift a while back. I hung them with some mini decorations my mother-in-law had kindly provided for our now-dead rosemary bush (the tag on the decoration box said "Sears $6.99", but I imagine you could a few small decorations for cheap at the dollar store also, or make your own!

I also added a couple of tiny snowmen my mother had bought us a few years ago with our names on them. Here's my snowman:

Myshka kitty seemed to find the little tree and its decorations almost as exciting as a real tree, since she perched herself next to it on the couch right away and watched me decorate it (and, of course, watched the balls swing!)

As you can see from the first photo, I also strung up some lights (using packing tape, which shouldn't damage the walls) over the couch, so now we have a festive "Christmas corner" in our little apartment.

Using the bits of cedar I stripped off the bottom of the "tree" stems, I tied a Christmas ribbon around them, attached a ball, and tapped it over the door in lieu of a wreath.

So there you have it. We've decorated our little apartment and it actually didn't cost me a dime, since the lights were also from my mother, who had no place for them. Of course, you can get a string of mini-lights at most dollar stores or home stores right now, and they're not too pricy.


I like the smell of a real Christmas tree, also. Rather than buying that horrid pine scent in a spray bottle (I don't even want to know what kind of weird stuff is in that!) I have a small bottle of all-natural pine oil, and one of cedar, that I can put in my diffuser to naturally scent the air.

Do you have any suggestions for cheap and natural Christmas decorations?

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