I love Christmas! It is my favorite time of year, seriously. The decorations, food, cocoa, cozy fires, warm sweaters, Christmas jammies, ALL OF IT. Last year I didn't need to change up my decorating, because the boys were still small enough that they stayed pretty much in one spot. They were just starting to attempt crawling, but they never got more that a few feet. They just loved staring up at the tree, but I never had to worry they'd mess with it.
BUT this year my boys are walking, climbing, and bulldozing. I'm not kidding on that last one... Their cute little stand and push walkers are now bulldozers, they run around with them and the more they drag or push along the better. Bonus points if it makes a lot of noise. Triple bonus points if it's your brother. I wish I was joking, JellyBean thinks its hilarious to bulldoze his poor brother{we're working on it}. So you can see why I was worried about decorating for Christmas. I've been combing the Pinterest for ideas since Halloween. So I thought I'd save you some time and share the 5 things that have been working for us.
1. Create a Tree Fence
The biggest change for our tree this year was creating a fence around the tree. I knew a fence around the tree was a must have, but I wasn't willing to pay the big bucks for it. So I grabbed a ton of boxes (thank you, Amazon addiction), filled them with heavy books, and wrapped them up. Most of them are chest high, except one which I'll explain later. The chest height has deterred them from climbing on top of them.
2. Use Shatterproof Ornaments
I kept the tree trimmings simple this year, and I definitely left off the breakable and heirloom ornaments. Why tempt fate? If I didn't want it broken, it stayed in the box. So I stuck with salt dough, felt, and plastic. You don't need to go out and buy special shatterproof ornaments
, just use what you have
or make some. I'd bet you already have all the ingredients to make your
own salt dough ornaments. 3. Try a Jingle Bell
This one has probably been my boys favorite part of the decorations. I put a gold jingle bell
within their reach and used a shorter box
in front of that section of the tree. I taught each of them how to
gently touch the bell and tree, and watched them very carefully the
first few days. I made sure to praise them for gentle touches and did
time outs for getting too rough. I chose a bell so that I could hear
when they were touching the tree, which is super helpful for monitoring
and correcting their behavior. The need reminders from time to time, but overall their doing well. Some of you might worry about your little ones climbing on the shorter box, but it's only happened twice in the 2 weeks we've had our tree up. That's pretty good considering I have 18 month old twin boys. The time outs seem to have nipped that in the bud. But honestly if you have a climber the shorter box might not be the best idea for you, my boys aren't huge climbers so it works for us.
4. Setup a Mini Tree
I happened to have an old tabletop christmas tree
from my college apartment. So I set
it up on a table next to my tree, where they can play with it. They love
that they can touch the lights and garland, and they are usually super
gentle with it. It's super sweet. When their not gentle, it disappears
for a while. Simple as that.5. Put up a Felt tree
This one is my favorite, I just love how cute it turned out. There are a ton of tutorials on Pinterest, but here's what I did... I grabbed some felt, folded it in half, used chalk to draw a tree, and cut it. I used a lid to trace the ball ornaments and printed a template for the retro ornaments. I sewed on scraps to make the designs. I also sewed on scrap circles as the lights. I sewed the fuzzy side of Velcro to the back side of the tree points and used Command Picture Hanging Strips on the wall to hang it. {we seriously we used those strips to hang EVERYTHING!!}This year my boys mostly like taking the ornaments off the tree, and watching me put them back. But the giggles are worth it. :)
I hope you found this helpful! I'd love to hear your tips for toddler-proof Christmas decor. Post them in the comments below!
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