The Banister Garland That Changed Our Staircase

For nineteen years, the staircase in this house got the same treatment. I would haul the plain green garland out of the basement, drape it over the banister, and then spend the better part of an afternoon winding a string of lights through it by hand. Every year the lights came out of storage in a knot. Every year I told myself I would coil them properly when I put them away. Every year I did not.

By the time I finished, my hands were scratched and the garland looked tired. The lights sagged in some places and bunched in others. Gary would come through and say it looked nice, which it did, in the way a thing looks nice when someone has clearly worked hard at it.

Two Christmases ago I bought a National Tree Company Crestwood Spruce garland, nine feet, pre-lit, and I have not wound a string of lights through anything since. It is a small purchase and a small change. But it gave me back a Saturday, and it made the front hall look better than it ever had.

Every year the lights came out of storage in a knot. Every year I told myself I would coil them properly. Every year I did not.

Here is what I did not expect. The thing I noticed first was not the lights. It was the fullness. My old garland was thin enough that you could see the banister rail right through it in places. The National Tree Company garland is built on a spruce branch base with over a hundred individual tips, and it covers the rail properly, so there are no bald spots to arrange around.

The tips carry a light silver glitter. That is worth saying plainly because it is the one thing that surprised me. When I lift it out of storage in late November, a little of that glitter sheds onto my hands and the floor, and I keep a rag nearby for the first pass. After that it settles down and I do not think about it again until next year.

It is battery powered. Three AA batteries, tucked in a little box that I push behind the bottom post where nobody sees it. I chose battery on purpose, because there is no outlet anywhere near that staircase and I was not about to run an extension cord across the hall for Gary to trip over. Fifty lights, already wired into the branches, so all I do is put the batteries in and hang it up.

I hang it myself with soft fabric ties. No nails, no tape, no staples going into twenty four years of woodwork. It takes me about ten minutes from the basement stairs to standing back to look at it. Gary carries the box up. After that it is my job and I do not mind it one bit.

I am not going to pretend it is the same as a fresh garland from a stand. It is PVC, and it will not shed pine needles into your slippers, and in year three it will look exactly like it looked in year one, which is either the best thing about it or the worst depending on what you want from your Christmas decorations. I want the thing I bought to still be the thing I bought. National Tree Company also lists no warranty on this one, which I noticed after I bought it. Two seasons in, nothing has needed one.

One more honest note. Nine feet is a real measurement and you should measure your rail before you order. Mine fits the run on our banister with a little to spare, and I use that spare to loop it through the bottom post so the end does not hang loose. If your staircase is longer than mine, one garland will not do it and you will be disappointed, and that is not the garland's fault.

What I like most is what it does to the hallway at night. The stairs are the first thing you see when you come in the front door, and with the garland lit, the whole entry has a low glow to it that no lamp in this house manages. I turn it on after supper and leave it on until I go up to bed. It is the only thing on that staircase, and it does not want anything else.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you are standing at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee, here is what I would say. If you already own a plain garland you like, and the only thing bothering you is the stringing, then buy lights and keep your garland. Nobody needs to spend money to solve a problem they do not have.

But if you are where I was, where the garland itself was thin and the winding was a chore you dreaded, then buy the one with the lights already in it and stop making an afternoon of it. Your Saturday in December is worth more than the difference in price. I say that as someone who spent nineteen of those Saturdays on a step stool.

And do not buy two. Measure first. One garland on one banister is plenty, and one is what I have. The rest of my decorating is the tree in the living room window and the candles on the mantel, and that is the whole production. I buy a piece or two a year. I have never redone the house all at once, and the front hall still looks as Christmasy as any house on this street.

Two seasons in, nothing has failed. No dead sections, no flicker, no battery box gone loose. When I take the National Tree Company garland down the first weekend of January, it goes back into the bag it came in and onto a basement shelf, and I do not think about it again until the weekend after Thanksgiving.