As millions of families across America spend a portion of Thanksgiving weekend untangling strands of store-bought twinkle lights to wrap around their Christmas trees, Joanna Gaines’ family is sitting pretty with the brightest living room tree we’ve ever seen. The HGTV and Magnolia star revealed the process of setting up her family’s massive (real) tree and then adding 20,000 lights. Yes, you read that right.
On November 24, 2025, Gaines shared a video detailing the process, which took a whole team of people, Gaines said she bought her lights at Home Depot, apologizing for wiping out her local store in Waco, Texas. You really have to see it to believe it.
Joanna Gaines Jokes Lighting Her Tree Requires a ‘Masters Degree in Electrical Science’
While it’s hard enough for many people to wrap their trees in hundreds of twinkle lights, Gaines shared a video of several people on ladders in her living room, meticulously wrapping the branches in thousands of lights.
Gaines, who will star with her husband Chip and their daughter Ella in “Fixer Upper: Mountain House” next month, captioned the post, “Always such a fun day✨ These sweet friends help me every year because lighting a tree this big is not only an art but also requires a masters degree in electrical science.
20,000 lights!!”
In the video, one of her helpers estimated that the grand total would actually be 19,200 lights, and Gaines laughed, “The tree has only fallen once (but) the day’s not over.”
The night before their huge undertaking, Gaines posted a video of the tree being delivered to their home and wrote, “Chip’s motto: the bigger the tree, the better. Our friends from @therobinsonfamilyfarm delivered this beautiful tree they got from @grigsby_farms in Salado, Tx. It’s huge 🎄🐿️”
How Much Did It Cost to Light Joanna Gaines’ Tree With So Many Lights?
Gaines later assured her followers that she had skilled adult helpers, not her own kids, helping with the living room tree.
Captioning a second video of the arduous process, she wrote, “Some thought my kids were the ones helping w the tree in the last post, my kids would not put up with my micromanagement of these tree lights 🤣 Been doing @magnolia visual displays with this team for years- next level magic makers. Liz is sharing how to light the tree if you too want your own Rockefeller center experience. 🤗✨”
Liz shared that she starts at the “very back” of each branch, near the trunk, wrapping the lights all the way to the tip of the branch and all the way back, and then moves on to the next branch. To do the whole tree, she said, took about six hours. Gaines also shared they had to hook the tree to the wall because it had since fallen over a second time.
Gaines also showed that the lights they were using were Home Depot’s Holiday Accents 300-light strands, which retail for $9.98. To decorate a tree with 19,200 lights would require 64 boxes, which means lighting up the family’s tree would have cost around $638 — likely a drop in the bucket for the Magnolia empire’s leading lady.
Joanna Gaines Shares Final Result of Christmas Tree Decorating
In the end, the cost and effort were worth it to Gaines, who posted a third video that night of the tree in all its splendor and wrote that she and her seven-year-old son Crew were especially mesmerized by the final result.
She wrote, “Crew and I want to sleep on the couch for the next month or so, she’s magical ✨”
Fans were equally enamored, flooding the post with comments, including one who wrote, “Wow, that is the most beautiful tree I’ve ever seen… It is so perfect for that room. Thanks for sharing so pretty❤️🎄”
GIRL BYE YOU DID NOT DO THAT TREE, you hired workers to do what you and the family should have done together