Rent the perfect Christmas – with all the trimmings

Tree decorations, presents, party outfits… it’s a magical time of the year but it can be an expensive one – and wasteful too. The solution? To hire a ready-made Yuletide. Anna Tyzack gives it a go

Chris Pine, Treena Turner and Treesa May – three Nordmann firs – will soon be sparkling with Christmas lights and draped in decorations. Since January they’ve been luxuriating on a farm in Gloucestershire, where they were fertilised, irrigated and given a seasonal haircut, and now they’re ready to be delivered back to the same families who gave them their silly names. “Children in particular love having the same tree each year; they become family,” explains Clare Slater, founder of Christmas tree rental company Christmas on the Hill( christmas on the hill. co.uk). “Although you don’t have to rent the same tree each year; you could go for a different size.”

The craze for renting rather than buying at Christmas is catching on so fast that Clare’s largest trees were reserved in July. It’s not just trees that people are renting, though: sparkly party dresses, children’s Christmas jumpers, tree decorations, tablescapes for the Christmas feast, sofa beds for extraneous relatives and enormous televisions are all being hired for the festive season. “People are really excited by the concept; they want to cut down on waste and free up storage in their homes – many of us don’t have space to keep boxes of decorations that we only use once a year,” explains Callum O’Driscoll, who founded Ecoelf (eco-elf. co.uk), a Christmas-tree rental service that delivers nationally. “Around 12,000 extra tonnes of rubbish is collected in January, including around eight million cut trees, the majority of which end up in landfill. Renting is the perfect antidote.” Meanwhile, Sacha Newall, founder of clothing rental website mywardrobehq.com, believes that for statement Christmas outfits, which are so often one-off wears, renting makes perfect sense. “The rental mindset is so much more fun: you can be more daring as you know you don’t need to get lots of use out of it, and you don’t have the guilt of sending an item to landfill after one wear,” she says.

As someone who gets much too nostalgic about Christmas, I’d worry about filling my home with items of no sentimental value. We’ve all seen the soulless ready-decorated rental Christmas trees in hotel lobbies and offices; I’d miss my motley selection of tree and table decorations and the pink Christmas jumper I bring out every year. Besides, renting a ready-decorated fake tree is extortionately expensive and even renting a real potted tree can cost up to double the cost of a cut tree.

“We’ve got the cost of looking after them, just as with any sustainable alternative,” explains Callum. “It’s not going to be for everyone; I’m trying to offer an alternative rather than tell people what to do.”

Yet when I attempt to rent everything I need for Christmas, I discover that apart from our rented Nordmann Fir, almost every festive item is much cheaper to rent than it is to buy – and more often than not it’s better quality and more beautiful than I would usually purchase. My green MHK dress, for example, costs just £9 a day to rent, yet would be £400 to buy; a Christmas tablescape for four from Maison Margaux, worth £1,400, rents for around £30 per person for a Christmas dinner party, and a £600 Ikea sofa bed to put up extra relatives can be borrowed for the month of December via moveandrent.com for £56. I find a Nutcracker outfit for my toddler for just £2 a day that would cost £25 to buy (and be redundant by Boxing Day); I can even rent all the cots, high chairs and other paraphernalia required to spend Christmas away from home on toyboxclub.co.uk.

Once I’ve taken delivery of my rental tree from Eco Elf, however, I decide that it’s probably worth signing up to a tree subscription, where you pay a £5.99 monthly fee throughout the year for your rental tree – then I won’t notice the extra cost. It smells wonderful, doesn’t

‘Children especially love having the same tree each year; they become family’ ‘You can keep using your old favourites, but change the look every year’

drop needles (because it’s alive) and it’s hassle-free: as soon as Christmas is over it will be picked up and become Eco Elf ’s responsibility again. “Traditional Nordmann firs have fallen out of fashion as they drop needles, yet they make perfect rental trees,” Callum explains. “The carbon footprint of a cut tree is 16kg whereas our living trees are still actively absorbing carbon.”

I’d have drawn the line at renting presents – who wants to have to hand back their new sweater or socks? – yet according to Jess Green, from toy rental company Toybox Club, renting children’s presents is taking off. “Our customers often hire out larger items, such as ride-on cars and toy kitchens for longer periods over Christmas – they are £10 per month for subscribers so it makes sense, financially and environmentally,” she says. Meanwhile, curated toy boxes, which include age-appropriate toys, books, puzzles and games can be wrapped as individual gifts or stocking fillers; a month later they will be picked up and replaced with a new box of toys. “If your child becomes attached to a particular puzzle or soft toy you can always buy it for them – better to invest in one they love than a whole heap they never play with,” Jess says. For teenagers, tech rental companies such as musicmagpie.co.uk offer a cost-effective way of gifting gaming consoles, projectors and laptops. Good luck trying to wrestle the device off them when the rental period is up – although you do have the option to upgrade.

Happily, renting Christmas does not mean retiring the things you already own and love, insists Louisa Preskett, founder of tableware company Maison Margaux. She suggests taking a halfand-half approach: buying the classics that you will reuse time and time again and renting the rest – those frivolous one-offs, which you’re in the mood for now, but probably won’t be forever. “A tablecloth can be used year-round and is easy to store, so if you find one you love, buy it,” she says. “But rent the festive tableware and glasses – it’s more cost-effective this way.”

Alas on Twelfth Night, when the time comes to pack up Christmas for another year, rented decorations, clothing and furniture carry with them all the same hassle as the objects you own. You’ll need to find the box, packing tape and the courier instructions. The plus side, however, is that once you’ve waved them off in the delivery van, you need never see them again – unless, of course, you want to.