I love classic, elegant Christmas decorations. But the reality is that I live with three little ones who love colorful, bold, animated style. Because it is their home, too - I want to include them. Here are some ideas of how to do that!
First of all - Let them get their hands on the tree! It doesn't matter if the ornaments aren't equally balanced or there are silly ones right up front. Your child will love seeing reminders of things they love on the tree and will feel valuable by being included. I have one friend who has two trees (children's tree and formal tree), but we don't have the room. My solution has been to just have breakables on the very upper portion, but this year my children are older and I got brave! We have glass ornaments all up and down the tree!
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| Our tree this year, sans colored lights. |
My children adore colorful lights. On my artificial, pre-lit tree, we only have white lights. So in the past I have added several cords of the old style opaque colored bulbs. This year, they got the ornaments on the tree before I had a chance to add them ... so we put the colored lights on an evergreen by our front door. Score for me - only white lights indoors...and I do lots of them: on the china cabinet, over the television, any place I can. I will always link the white sparkle of lights to the magic feeling.
Several years ago, someone gave us this
obnoxious delightful dancing snowman. I hate it. But it causes squesls and laughter so every year I put new batteries in it and place it where they can press the button at will. Whenever the children hear "Jingle Bell Rock," they call it the dancing penguin song.
Between church, school and home, we have tons of Christmas crafts. I create a space for these to be shown in the kitchen and we also send them to family who live out of state. The love to see their treasures on display! When we put together our gingerbread house, I leave it out as decoration ... they have most of the candy picked off and eaten by Christmas Day.
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| Our houses get prettier each year! |
Another easy way to keep the children involved in Christmas is to play out the Christmas story. We have the Fisher Price Little People nativity set and sometimes they get to play with our breakable set under supervision.
I still get to have my grown-up decorations that are less flashy and more classic. And I'm sure as they children get older we'll have fewer brash accessories. For now, I love seeing their smiles and fun! It's worth a little tackiness to make memories.
Is there anything you put out at Christmas only for the sake of your child? Do you have a personal decorating style for the holidays? I loved this winter
woodland tree which I think would make moms and children happy!
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