Christmas decorating with kids

[christmaslover88]

For the record, I am the biggest Christmas fan on earth, I absolutely love it and look forward to it all year. My kids are 4 and about to turn 3. Obviously they're both very excited about Christmas. But today we tried to decorate for Christmas and it was awful. The kids wouldn't listen, kept flicking baubles off the tree (stressing me out that they'd smash), playing tug of war with tinsel, shouting and just generally misbehaving. Does anyone else find that decorating with young kids is not the magical experience you expect? I was so desperate to just stop it all and do it by myself after they were in bed but I know they'd be so upset if we did that. I just feel like at the moment whenever I try to arrange something fun for us all to do together as a family the kids end up ruining it with their inability to listen or follow instructions. What age will they be able to decorate a tree without me losing my mind?!

Mine have their own trees and baubles in their room.

They help with small other areas but mostly they like to tug the beads

My kids (8 and 4) usually get very excited about decorating the tree and then get bored and wander off after a few minutes. This year the 8 year old didn't get bored though and helped me decorate the whole tree while we listened to Christmas music. She really enjoyed it. This was also the first year I didn't have to re-distribute all the baubles she'd hung after she'd gone to bed, she did a great job and no breakages! The 4 year old hung a couple of baubles then complained he was bored. He ended up playing a lego game on his tablet until we'd finished. He was excited see the tree once it was done though and did 'help' DH put some outside lights up.

I had a very happy childhood and have 3 siblings. It was an annual family tradition for us to have a major fight over decorating the tree. My Mum had this fantasy of us all singing Oh Christmas Tree standing around the tree, it wasn't quitd likd that ..Without fail at least one of us (including my Mum) would be in tears and another slamming doors and stomping up the stairs. So although I have other magical Christmas childhood memories I had v low expectations about decorating. I have a 9 year old DS with SEN and a 3 year old. I have quite a lot of unbreakable tree decs now which are in one box and the more fragile ones are kept separately- these I put up once the children are in bed. So far tree decorating has been less stressful than my childhood so I'm taking that as a win.

Those make your own kids baubles are genius!!!
My 4 year old gets his own tree, and then for our tree, we set him up with a "bauble shop" where he's the shopkeeper and we purchase all of our decorations from him and put them on the tree.

Keeps him involved without having a messy tree. He needs to reevaluate his pricing though - £80 a bauble is daylight robbery even in imaginary money!

🤣🤣🤣🤣 Sounds like my DD's pricing!

Hi newbie here and I've got to say this post I can relate to. It's stressful enough decorating the tree let alone children wanting to help. Baubles clumped in one place. Tinsel just thrown on for good measure. Just wait for them to go to bed and redecorate. Their hearts are in the right place, the baubles aren't 😄

Like a PP, we only have one DC to contend with which makes a big difference, but our approach this year was to give him a box of “special” (cheap, but very shiny/sparkly plastic) baubles to decorate with, whilst DH and I raced around doing all the others before he could finish.

Previous years when he’s been too young, we’ve decorated when he was in bed, but saved him one or two special baubles to do. The excitement of coming down to the tree in the morning still made his eyes light up.

OP you inspired me help the kids make their own!!! We've had to upgrade their tree to the old one which is bigger to accommodate all the extra baubles.
Thanks for the idea!

@TheRealKatnissEverdeen oh they look fab, well done you! I went into town and totally forgot to buy the fill your own baubles so will save it for next year now. But good to know it works well