I just orderd a non prelit . I have lots of nice special lights I want to use. Years ago I bought a tree after xmas and then the next year I tied with wired several strands of lights. They were good name brand lights and I had that tree for about 25 yrs. I was so big I stored it in two huge boxes. Fainally I gave it to the church. When the lights on that tree started going bad my DH spent hours trying to fix and I finally cut all the lights off and used my own. I bought a prelit tree new at a thrift store and used it for a couple years and gave it to my daughter. Now I am going back to non pre lit tree.