Protect your carpet from Christmas tree

There's nothing more festive than putting up your Christmas tree! ....when your home smells of pine, little twinkling lights welcome you into the room, and the tree is full of bright, beautiful decorations....

Before you get carried away with all the decorating fun be sure to protect your carpet or wood floor from your Christmas tree.

There are three main challenges real trees pose, needles dropping, water leaking, stand staining, and tree sap.

Here are some tips to help protect your floor from these:

- Needles dropping - as with cut flowers, cut trees need watering. If the tree dries out then it will loose its needles very fast. Use a Christmas tree stand with a water dish so that your can top up the water regularly. This will not stop the needles dropping completely but it will reduce the amount. Also, heat will affect the tree and make it dry out faster, so try to place the tree away from a heat source.

- Water leakage - your carpeted or wooden floor can be badly damaged if you get a leak. Be sure to protect the floor under the tree stand with something waterproof that can catch the water if it spills. A big tray will do, a strip of carpet protector, or a waterproof mat. Test the stand's water holding capabilities over night before collecting your tree.

- Stand staining - the stand, if it becomes wet, can transfer its colouring on to the carpet. These are usually painted green and will result in a green stain on your carpet. As with above, put some sort of protection underneath, possibly an off cut of carpet that you don't mind getting stained.

- Tree sap - Tree sap is very sticky to deal with. If the sap leaks on to your carpet you will want to use alcohol to treat it. As with all chemical treatments do a test on an inconspicuous area of carpet first the ensure the alcohol will not damage the carpet. Using a clean, un-dyed cloth dab the alcohol onto the sap. This will harden the sap to make it possible to scape away.