Our Christmas tree just has a couple of 12mm WS2801 strands. I’ve got a couple more on order (from aliexpress of course).
It’s got IR control to change a few parameters such as speed, direction, brightness, display mode and principal hue. It also has a pushbutton to change modes.
Most of the modes currently uploaded are just variations of sine waves. . . so rather simple.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAeXZWyKDck