Table of Contents
Chances are the Christmas of 2014 was the last one when I got to use all my carefully selected and colour-harmonised Christmas tree ornaments for a long time. Bobcat was only 8 months old and was only crawling. When I had to leave the room, I just popped him into his playpen. Now, that the kiddos are older BUT we have a hyper puppy AND a cat, it’s a different story.
I know many parents with toddlers will appreciate this ideas, because we will have to find new ways to make the tree out of the little’s reach or even if they get their hands on it we won’t end up at the A&E. So here they are.
Place the Christmas tree out of reach
Placing the Christmas tree entirely out of reach is one solution. Pinterest is a good start as always I explored my favourite bloggers and Pinterest accounts for inspiration and you can check them out on my new inspirational board I created on Pinterest: Captain Bobcat Pinterest
Behind a playpen or baby gate
Use a playpen as a tree-pen to keep curious little hands away from the tree. If you have an old playpen or baby gate, build it up around the Christmas tree. You can even decorate it with toddler safe decoration: paper garlands or plastic ornaments. It will also help you to keep the presents unopened 🙂 With this trick you can also have your fave ornaments and a big tree, it also saves money, as you don’t need to invest into anything else but the tree. This might not be the prettiest solution, but definitely effective.
On a table
Place it on a high table so they can’t reach it. This option will limit the height of the tree, but you can maybe have 2 or even 3 smaller Christmas trees around the house this year, decorated differently. A true challenge for crafty mummies and those who love decorating. There’s some great examples: Christmas tree on the table or this really nice design from Gus and Lula Christmas Tree On The Top Of The Piano I also found some interesting designs Easy Table Top Christmas Trees by Better Homes And Gardens.
Use children friendly decoration
Create children friendly decoration. The biggest worry when it comes to Christmas trees that they either pull it over or they can eat or break an ornament.
Paper decoration
It’s good fun to make decoration together with your children. You can make paper garlands from colourful scrap paper. Or cut out ornaments using printable templates.
Here’s a couple of nice downloadable templates:
Mini Paper Angels
Jumbo Christmas Lights Print Out
Make edible ornaments
That’s another good plan. Since I was a child with my mum (who’s rubbish at baking, hates it too) we baked a huge load of Lebkuchen every Christmas. That was our tradition. Then we decorated them with nuts, raisins and white sugar paste. Lebkuchen is similar to ginger cookies, but it’s normally made with honey, a German Christmas treat. I have a Lebkuchen recipe on the blog and a how to make Lebkuchen decoration post too.
Felt ornaments
This is really cute and the kids will love it. It does require some degree of craftiness, but they will be forever used and cherished because they will always bring back sweet memories. Here’s some easy to follow tutorials: 10 DIY Felt Christmas Ornaments and another one from Lia Griffith, how to make cute felt animals step-by-step: Felt Fox Ornament Think you can’t do that or no time? Buy them on Etsy or on Folksy. Local craft and Christmas markets also always have them on sale.
Homemade white clay
If you like the simplicity and the serene look of white clay decorations, this one you sill adore. Not everyone is into flitter and glitter, some prefer a more natural or minimalist look to the tree. We made this a few years ago: White Clay Christmas Decorations With Just 2 Cupboard Ingredients and quite a few of them are still going strong! You can also use them for table top or dining room ceiling decoration.
Salt dough ornaments
A variation of the home made white clay – looks very much alike, but a different recipe: salt dough ornaments. You can add colours or some biodegradable glitter too – or just stick to the plain ones.
1 comment
Very nice and interesting blog Eva!