How are you stopping your dc from playing with the tree and decorations?

[JingJanglingrecieversaidthanks]

The dc are driving me mad! Not looking forward to the next couple of weeks tbh. They are 3 and 2, and will not leave the decorations or tree alone.

Time out isn't working for them, and the next step is to put them away.

They throw the decorations around, turn the lights on and off continously, and just don't leave them alone when we ask them to.

Lol whomovedmychocolate, I keep finding mice everywhere too, thank goodness mine are outside!

put a smaller tree up on a table

or only put unbreakable non precious things on it and just let them do what they want. theyll get bored eventually.

dont put chocs or candy canes on

gaffer tape a box (margerine tub?) over the plug socket where the lights are plugged in to stop them switching the lights on and off.

remember xmas is all about kids and unclench.

or, do as i do.

set up a lovely tree, get all precious about how it looks, shut the door of the room its in so the kids cant get in (only they do and sneak in when youre not looking and eat the candy canes and chocs i should not have put on there)

They are so very young and probably very excited. As long as they aren't breaking things I would leave them to it but move the plugs if possible, or conceal them, as they shouldn't be turning things on and off from a safety point of view.

The more you say to not do it the more they will. Leave them to it and the novelty will wear off and they will leave them alone.

My dd and my dn (aged 7 and 11) are bickering over decoraring the tree (purchased about 3 hours ago and it's not even relaxed yet). They're driving me mad. I set them to make fairy-dolls for it but that nearly created WW3 when they both wanted the same bauble to make a head with .

Mind it's the first year we've had the cat so she'll probably be a climber too.

My cat loves playing tennis with the baubles.

I agree with Nab. Ours have free reign on decoration but we forbid fiddling with the lights. We put it up after lunch today and it already has three pipe cleaners and a home made necklace on it.

If it is important to you what the tree looks like, how about a tiny artifical tree for the DCs room for them to get creative with. I had one from when I was about 6. It was about 30cm high and I made my decorations and was given bits of tinsel no longer worthy of display in living room. I also wrapped up tiny boxes to put underneath.

i bought a small one foot tree and gave it to ds 2.3 with old tinsel and balls so when he goes near the big tree i pull out his little one and let him pull it apart,put it back together again.after two days he was so bored of it he doesnt even notice the tree anymore

I'm failing miserably. Caught him chewing a red bauble this morning. His mouth was all red and I instantly thought it was blood but luckily just a plastic bauble and red paint

the tree has been up for around 24hrs.

Ds has broken many many baubles (so they won't go on teh tree) - apparently he needed them to make petrol for his car wtf?

He has also worked out how to get to the plugs (which we thought were carefully out the way) and has almost broken the lights.

He is on his final warning. If he plays again it will all come down and go away. He hasn't touched them for over a couiple of hours.

I ahte that 'christmas trees are for kids' - having an arguement about it with lodger yesterday. Apparently his family don't do decorations or stockings once the child is old enough to read.

There are sometimes whne I understand why lodger makes scrooge look full of christmas spirit

Ok,
After forgetting about this thread, thought it was time to come back to it!!

We've made some decorations which the dc loved, so they are on the tree - and they are leaving it alone as ds has said they don't want to break their decorations.

Hiden the plugs, but the dc still try to play with them to turn the lights on and off. It's odd as plugs have never been an interest to them!

without meaning to we have bought a tree with the sharpest prickles ever.

Both boys have been near it and backed off so although we had ideas of a lovely family decorating session it was a non starter.

Today's answer is, I am not

he has broken a really lovely new one I bought yesterday and was earlier discovered snipping bits off the tree (it is a plastic one) with his scissors