Christmas Decorating with a Toddler

Our Christmas decorations have technically been in the house for two weeks, but it initially took several days after they came in to actually get them all up. Brian and I designated the day after Thanksgiving as decorating day, trying to get in as much Christmas as possible since our last two Christmases have been so hectic. Even with the desire and best intention to get everything up as soon as we could, having a toddler in the house meant taking a much more graduated approach to Christmas decorating.

With Christmas music playing, the wreaths, lit garland in the kitchen, small decorations and the tree itself went up quickly. Getting the ornaments on the tree was a bit more tricky. We have a small box of soft and non-breakable ornaments that I've been saving for when we had curious little hands helping with tree decorating. There was a lot of hand-holding to help her get the hooks onto the branches, but she started getting the hang (haha) of things.

At first Ellie took great interest in putting up the ornaments, but soon she started taking them off the tree, and then lost interest altogether. She would wander into the other room to play for about five minutes or so and then, remembering that the tree was in the other room, she would come back in and we could pick up where we left off. It took us roughly two and a half days to get the tree fully decorated, but I really savored Ellie's first time being able to help us decorate for Christmas.

Upon successfully hanging an ornament, there was much applause.

Now that the ornaments are on the tree, we're taking every opportunity to teach Ellie the meaning of fragile and looking with our eyes and not with our hands (I guess those lessons my parents taught us really stuck!).

Here's Ellie's section of the tree:

Ellie's has two favorite ornaments -- the snowman (partially obscured by garland), which she always points out when we're looking at the tree and her owl, the latter of which I bought at a holiday bazaar in Central Park while I was in New York City this past weekend as a memento that I hope she'll cherish in years to come.

Although it took some time decorating the house this year, there is no doubting that Ellie is crazy about Christmas lights of any kind. Every time we run errands at a store that happens to have a light display, we must go see it. Ellie excitedly hollers, "Lights, lights, LIGHTS!! Ooooooh, see lights!!" Ellie also reminds me to turn the lights on in the morning if they're off when she comes downstairs. She's going to be over the moon when we go to the Winterhaven light festival and the zoo for Zoo Lights. I really love having a toddler in the house around the holidays because it really forces me to stop and enjoy all the little things ("those lovely intangibles"), and I can't imagine anything better than being able to experience Christmas through her eyes.