Christmas is supposed to be a time of celebrating family, and a fun exchange of gifts as a token of our appreciation for those we love.
Of course what’s Christmas without a Christmas tree?
Some prefer to buy one fake tree that they keep in their garage and bring out every year as a money saver.
Others like the smell an authenticity of a real tree in their living room.
And then there’s some who go over the top and spend way more than is really necessary! Spending more than a hundred bucks or two is already going overboard for us regular folks.
But when you’re a company with a huge budget and want to draw in attention from the world, there’s no telling where you’ll stop.
The Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi took the cake for the most expensive Christmas tree in the world in 2010.
But before we break down the facts behind it, let’s see what some of its competition was.
A Tree for Alcohol Lovers – $55,000
London is known for being an expensive city, so it makes sense you can find a costly Christmas tree there.
At a high end hotel called Sofitel, at a glance this tree doesn’t look very attractive.
The tree is simply a metal frame that is tiered with 200 miniature bottles of cognac.
However, these bottles are decorated with 24 carat gold, of which at least five experts worked on handcrafting each bottle.
And of course, the cognac itself is nothing but top shelf Louis XIII Grande Champagne. A full bottle costs $2,400 dollars alone.
The total of these mini bottles to form the tree comes out to a whopping $55,000 dollars. The metal tree itself is almost 17 feet tall.
If you were to take a bottle off the tree, you would have to carefully start at the top and work your way down, or else the balance may be compromised and you’ll be left with an expensive mess!
Tokyo’s mini Christmas tree – $1.8 Million
When you’re rich, size doesn’t matter as much – especially when you have diamonds to show off.
A Japanese department store chain shrunk a Christmas tree down to 40 centimeters (don’t ask me how!).
The tiny tree was then decorated with clusters of roses, each of which had a diamond in the center which are sourced from Australia and Africa.
The tree is accompanied by a red bear which wears a diamond pendant.
A Disney Christmas Tree – $4.2 Million
Although you may think this is referring to the giant Christmas tree you see when you enter Disneyland during the winter months, that’s not the expensive one we’re talking about!
Once again, Japan is responsible for this elaborate Christmas tree.
Ginza is Tokyo’s high end fashion shopping destination, so this display had to impress.
It took two months for ten artisans to create this tree which was made out of solid gold!
Standing almost eight feet tall, the gold weighs in at 88 pounds, and all at 24-carat value.
The gold tree features 50 Disney characters and is topped with a Mickey Mouse outline.
The Most Expensive Christmas Tree – $11 Million
The tree that stood in the Emirates Palace luxury hotel was just over 40 feet tall. This fake evergreen tree alone cost $10,000!
So what brought the cost up into the millions?
The decorations, of course!
It was adorned with silver and gold bows, classic ball ornaments, and small fairy lights.
All of this is the usual decorations you would use on a Christmas tree, but they didn’t stop there.
The owner of a jewelry store called Style Gallery supplied some of his products to further decorate the tree.
Overall it contained 181 diamonds, pearls, emeralds, sapphires, and other expensive stones.
Among the jewelry pieces were necklaces, watches, and bracelets.
The cost of those 181 pieces of jewelry was valued over $11 million dollars!
Although this seems over the top, this “seven star” hotel has already had similar expensive gimmicks, like a gold bar vending machine.
This record will be a tough one to beat, but for now this remains the most expensive Christmas tree yet!
