Love, love, love this little tree! It does chomp batteries fairly quickly. The blue is the first to go if you run the tree nightly. But I figure it is worth it- I only have it up from the day after Thanksgiving until the day after Christmas. Change the batteries halfway through the time period. Makes me happy every time I look at it. The branches are a bit squished directly from shipping. Takes about 5 minutes to fluff them out.