Blogger Reveals Nightmare Before Christmas Tree (But Would You?)

• Give your Christmas tree a darker edge this year
• Lifestyle blogger Haydy Squibb tells us how she made her tree

With fancy festive trees going viral this year, we found one with a slightly darker twist.

Haydy Squibb, who runs the Squibb Vicious lifestyle blog, has put up her Nightmare Before Christmas Tree, based on the 1993 Tim Burton film.

We spoke to Haydy about where she got the idea for the tree from.

She said, “ We [her and her boyfriend Mike] saw one that we really liked from Marvel and DC cover artist Greg Horn. I can’t even remember how we found the picture of it!

“I think it was one of those, ‘Oh that’s a good idea, we should try that!’ that we actually ended up sticking to! We’d only just got together as a couple so I wasn’t sure how well it’d all end up!”

This was both Haydy and Mike’s first time creating a less than traditional tree for Christmas.

She said, “I’ve never done anything for the sort before! My parents always had a really traditional real fir tree with decorations on that we’d collected throughout the year.

“There was one Jack Skellington [a Nightmare before Christmas character] bauble on there though that came back from Florida with me previously.

“Mike’s parents were the same with their tree! I didn’t think I’d have been be able to pull something like this off when I was younger, as it’s so much work and I can be pretty clumsy around fragile things!”

The Nightmare Before Christmas tree has characters from the film on it, instead of traditional baubles and tinsel.

The decorations help to give it a spooky outline when lit up.

Haydy talked us through how she put the decorations together, “There’s a mixture of homemade and bought items on there.

“All of the main characters are figures from NECA (before the days of Disney owning the rights!) that are tied to the tree with the finest wire we could buy so you can’t see it. These are no longer made so we spent hours scouring eBay for them hoping people were selling some.

“We bought job lots, individuals, literally anything we could get our hands on! We had alerts set up on both our phones for new listings.

“It took us around 11 months to source all of the characters, so it was a proper labour of love.

“There are some traditional looking baubles on there from The Disney Store, odd tiny characters I bought online from China, a soft toy Jack that came back from Florida and a few items from Jun Planning that we got online too.

“The handmade items include white baubles that Mike drew on with a brush pen to look like silhouettes.

“I had wrote the ‘Simply Meant to Be’ in chalk in the middle of the tree.

“There’s a few odd bits on there that aren’t The Nightmare Before Christmas themed like our big initials above Jack and Sally that my mum got us and round the back there’s a snowman with ‘Haydy & Mike’s First Christmas’ on that I felt I needed when I saw it!”

The couple have made a stop motion video to fully show off the tree.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8dDmYlG3qU&t=1s

The tree took a whole year to do, but Haydy said the video was far more work

“All of the credit for the video has to go to Mike, I’m literally just the legs at the start!

“It took around 50 hours to do! Our living room was turned into a film studio with lighting, computers and cameras everywhere.

“The stop motion sections amount to around 1800 photos that all had to be photoshopped as Jack Skellington was a flimsy model that was rigged into place with thick wire and an old football trophy.

“Mike booked a day off work to shoot all the photos and then edited them of an evening after work!

“I cried the first time I watched it as I was in awe of how amazing it was!”

The online response to the tree was viral; it was the most viewed image on Reddit for a few hours with over 1.4 million views.

Haydy told us her reaction to the tree going viral, “It blew my mind that people were so nice about it!

“All of our friends and family were in awe and the groups we shared it into were all so nice about it.

“I did cry a few times when people were sharing the stop motion last year as I was just so proud!”

However not all the feedback from the tree was positive, some people made personal attacks towards the couple about the tree.

“When various Facebook pages got hold of it, we were subjected to quite a lot of trolling which was a shame, but I think that’s going to happen when it’s opened to the masses!

“We had people accusing us of being all sorts. One I always remember was saying ‘I bet your teenage kids, that shop in hot topic with dyed black hair, and are fat’, I found that so funny; we were both well into our 20s, nothing from Hot Topic, and our hair was far from dyed black!

“Also, no idea what our weight had to do with it! I’d also like to find teenagers with enough patience and money to make one; I’d never of been able to 10 years ago!

“Some people said they found it offensive as it’s not what Christmas is about in a traditional sense, but for us, as we’re not religious, Christmas is about family and it’s a film we both loved growing up with our families.

“There were lots of great comments in between the bad though, in fact, there were probably more ‘Tree Goals’ than anything else which did help the nastiness! You seem to just remember the bad stuff for some reason.”

Despite Haydy loving her tree, she isn’t sure whether it will become a new alternative tradition in her house.

She said, “We are thinking of selling the tree next year as it’s a lot of work to put up and even more work to take down.

“Plus with how much it cost, selling it will add to our house fund!

“When we’ve moved from our flat to a house, hopefully, in 2019, we are thinking of something fun again.

“I really want a black tree next time around so we’ve banded round ideas of No Face from Studio Ghibli, Darth Vader from Star Wars or possibly something Space related as we’ve recently been to the Kennedy Space Center and are obsessed.

“I think it’s a watch this space for now.”

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