Spending Christmastime in Beijing can be daunting for expats who haven’t experienced the winter holidays here before. Thankfully the city provides lots of ways to celebrate, and lots of places to shop for decorations. Here’s our rundown of some of the city’s best spots to pick up Christmas trees, lights, Santa hats, wreaths, model reindeer and much more.

Nuren Jie (ladies street) opens a temporary Christmas market in December that includes about 10 tents filled with Christmas decorations and accessories. There’s a huge selection of fake Christmas trees, and you can expect to pay around RMB70-100 for one that’s four to four-and-a-half feet tall. We bought lights for around RMB25-30, but one set of the said lights broke as soon as we got home. Santa hats, reindeer antlers that play Christmas music and cute Rudolph headbands are RMB5-10. Ornaments here tend towards the tacky, and you should expect to pay around RMB10 for a set. You’ll also find musical santas, plastic reindeer and lots of dining accessories like plates and napkins.

Nearby but stocking nicer stuff is Liangma Flower Market. Outside, you can get real Christmas trees for anywhere from RMB200 to over RMB1,000. The trees are from Dongbei and the Beijing area, and the Beijing ones tend to be greener. Delivery service is available, and pricing depends on the size of tree and where you live. Inside the market on the second floor is a good selection of decorations, with some really lovely ornaments (as well as the tacky ones), candles, fake trees and other items. Prices are very similar to the Nuren Jie market, and there’s not too much bargaining to be had. Just asking for a discount can probably shave RMB10 off your bill, though. The RMB30 Christmas lights we bought here did not break as soon as we put them on the tree, and the saleslady assured us that they’re refundable up until December 25 should anything go wrong.

Over on the west side of the city by Fuchengmen is Tianyi Market, a massive wholesale market that sells just about everything, with a very wide range of Christmas items. The place is quite hectic, especially in the early morning and around Christmas, and you should expect to bargain hard.

In addition to these markets, Beijing’s big supermarkets, like Carrefour, Jingkelong and Hualian all also offer cheap Christmas items (back in 2007, we got a one-foot tree from the Lotus Hypermarket in Wudaokou for just RMB8!), although as of last Sunday, our local Jingkelong still had all the Christmas stuff sitting around packed up in large boxes.