I'm confused about my decorations!

[Listzilla]

All the decorations for my tree are clear glass, and when they break it's nasty. We'll have an 18 month old this christmas, and another baby due next year, so we've a good few years of little grabby hands ahead of us.

I'm tempted to leave the glass stuff in the attic and start over, but half of me thinks it's a waste of money and I'm just doing it for the sake of shopping. I like shopping Also I don't really know how to start from scratch; I don't know where to look (I don't have time to get out and browse shops so everything has to be online) and I can't decide what sort of thing to go for.

My brain's melting...

Putting the christmas tree in the playpen might help

We have a 16 mth DD and I fully understand your worries. How about keeping all the clear glass decoration on the top half the trees? And just need to get about 6 to 10 soft decoration for the 'bottom' of the trees so your wee one can 'touch' those. Just make sure you secure your glass decoration with wire hook (you can get them from most christmas shop).

May be consider putting bushy tinsel in the tree to keep the glass decoration inside the tree?

Hope you find this helpful ;)

I really would leave the glass decs in the loft until the DC are many years older, for safety reasons if none else. You'd never forgive yourself if your DC got glass fragments in a wound.

If you like fairly neutral decorations, why not go for matt silver, white and clear decs? You can get clear acrylic 'icicles' and drops, fake 'snowballs,' snowflake shapes, and all sorts of shatterproof baubles. Go for items made from wood or fabric or metal too. Wilkinsons have some reasonable items that you can order online, as do all the big supermarkets. All the big dept stores have websites too. M&S have some cute baby seals and penguins this year, you could have a 'frozen planet' theme. To keep costs down, make the 'snowballs' yourself by making a ball of screwed-up paper and covering in cottonwool from a roll. Or make a garland by threading cottonwool balls onto a white string or fine ribbon.

If you can get out at all, I would recommend browsing a few garden centres, they have lots of different things, and often some sort of animatronic tableau which your toddler would love.

I used those little green wire attachments rather than the thread and wrapped the decs round twice on the branches I also put on the glass ones high up in the tree and well in along the branches. I boxed the tree between two armchairs and a table. So it was like Fort Knox.