Anyone else finding this really tough?
Care to share, commiserate, pass on any tips?
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No advice but commiseration. Our gingerbread house is so freaking ugly. I miss my beautiful hand blown glass ornaments.
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I embrace it. We have a 4 foot tree with some over priced lead free lights and felt ornaments. Perfection isn't real, it's evil!
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I can't say ours was ever perfect anyway. But I do love how excited she is about her tree, which means a lot more to me than a beautifully decorated house. She's been pretty good about not messing with the tree too which is surprising.
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Nah, I think having a kid around for Christmas is way more fun than having perfect decor. Honestly the only big change is just that there are a loooooott of ornaments front and center on our tree where she could reach by herself.
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@Foodnerd81: Did you decorate it together? We did - which was lovely - but that has understandably resulted in her continually messing with the tree now! I'm already so tired of putting ornaments back on!
@Greentea: Yes, it does seem to be one of the main evils in my life. This is obviously a lesson I keep needing to learn! Perhaps we will do the same next year - if I make all the ornaments with E it will look charmingly, deliberately imperfect .
@Truth Bombs: This will be my first Christmas with E that she really understands and its proving very fun. You're right, I I had to choose, Id choose this (but I want it all!
)@oliviaoblivia:
I miss my wooden, hand crafted nativity scene. I had to pack it away because she didn't understand that it wasn't to be played with - and she I put it in reach and allowed playing (its wood, so not delicate), she kept posting the baby Jesus down the back of the radiator! Its actually funny now I've slept on it!!!
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@Cherrybee: we did decorate together- well Dh and I put it up and put the lights and garland on while she napped then we did ornaments together. It took a day or two but now she mostly leaves them alone. We just kept reminding her not to take things off or pull it or the tree could fall down. She's allowed to touch with one finger but not grab. I'm sure it really depends on the kid- and think about how tempting it must be! A sparkly lit tree right there in the living room??
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@Foodnerd81: Yeah, she means no mischief by it. I know that because she runs to us, holding an ornament, squealing "look!" and then when we remind her she shouldn't touch the tree she tries to claim she didn't! "I just looking" - LOL, bless her!
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We're living at the inlaws' right now and they have sooo many little, delicate decorations. Her gran isn't too uptight about it but has dealt with DD's desperation to touch and help by giving her her own little tree to decorate and creating a little grotto for her, which has Christmas books, a stocking filled with Santa candles, a little tree with lights etc. She is allowed to sit there and touch and play with all of it, and it has really helped keep everywhere else tidy.
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@travelgirl1: That's a brilliant idea! Perhaps I will do that next year. I'm not sure where it might go though - my house is pretty small and I suffer from the need for every corner of it to be beautiful.
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@Cherrybee: I'll take a photo when the baby wakes up. She has it on the bend in the stairs.
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@Cherrybee:
It's small but looks gorgeous in the dark. -
@travelgirl1: Wow!! That is completely amazing! What an ingenious way to find the space!
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I'll be faced with this in a couple of years. Until I unwrapped the ornaments I bought a couple years ago I didn't remember how delicate they were.
We will have to have a kid's tree! I purposely left the bottom, about 18-24" ornament free. There was a lively two year-old at our party and all the ornaments stayed safely on the tree.
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: Mine aren't even that delicate, I just hate them being messed up! We had a visitor this morning (just the builder to talk about our new kitchen, but I still wanted it looking lovely before he arrived) and my lounge looked so beautiful with my twinkling tree and mantel decorations..... until E entered the room and tipped her toys out everywhere. Humph.
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The kids are good about being gentle and we haven't had anything break yet. DD1 has always been good and DD2 likes to touch, but her big sister keeps her in check!
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J doesn't mess with the tree too much. I let him decorate it entirely on his own. My mother never let me decorate the tree. I wanted to make it fun for him.
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We are putting up the tree today. Last year he wouldn't go near the tree for some reason but this year will be a different story. Any tree we've seen while out he can't resist touching.
He already won't leave the centerpiece on the table alone and it is just a glass bowl of round christmas ornaments. Which he has also declared to be putting on the tree.
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We passed on a lot of our decor this year. Our tree looks like a toddler decorated it. Lovingly
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This year I pretty much used all of my regular decorations. I'm serious about my holiday decor and lo (3) gets that she can touch things gently but she's pretty good in that regard. She also has her own tree that she can decorate and touch and remove all the ornaments whenever do I think that helps.
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I grew up with cats that would jump on and climb on every Christmas decoration, so I'm kind of used to it. My Christmas style has always been baby/toddler safe and relatively indestructible/inexpensive.
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After LO broke a ton of ornaments (that I didn't even realize were delicate--he snapped some plastic ones!) I just gave up on decorating the tree. It's got maybe 30 ornaments at the top and that's it.
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@Applesandbananas: when we were decorating my LO managed to push her thumb through an ornament. I knew it was theoretically breakable but thought you'd have to like, step on it. But she went all hulk on it I guess.
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@Foodnerd81: he snapped a plastic M&M's ornament, yanked the garland off and sent several ornaments flying, he broke some antlers off a plastic reindeer, lol it was just insane! I had this Pinterest-y vision in mind of us dancing to Christmas music, decorating the tree and... Yeah. Lowered my expectations reallllll quick lol
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We have a 12 foot blow up Santa on our lawn sooo.... We've really upped the tack factor and left behind the classy since having a toddler.
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@sslm: we got lucky, our neighbors have a giant Olaf on their lawn and LO is OBSESSED. They're directly across from us so it's perfect.
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We didn't change anything about our decor except the lower half of the tree has the nonbreakables. She was bored after 5 mins of decorating it. So it doesn't look like she did it.
)
I miss my wooden, hand crafted nativity scene. I had to pack it away because she didn't understand that it wasn't to be played with - and she I put it in reach and allowed playing (its wood, so not delicate), she kept posting the baby Jesus down the back of the radiator! Its actually funny now I've slept on it!!!
We will have to have a kid's tree! I purposely left the bottom, about 18-24" ornament free. There was a lively two year-old at our party and all the ornaments stayed safely on the tree.
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