Har, rainbowunicorn, you clearly have not had a "spirited" toddler :p DD is so persistent that nothing, absolutely nothing, reinforces not touching something she wants to touch. I could tell her every minute of the day not to and she would still try. I'm sure this will be a very useful character trait in later life (she's very resilient), but in toddlerhood it is fantastically annoying 
OP I have a high energy toddler too and she was already walking for her first proper Christmas (she'll be 3 this year), so we have never been able to trust her not to touch things. What we do is have a smallish but bushy real tree in a pot, on top of a small table, and we have all-unbreakable tree decs. She does take them off (typically to run around the room wearing them as "bracelets", ho hum), but she can't do much to them.
It's a shame as I have a huge pre-DC collection of antique glass baubles and other exquisite and lovingly collected choking hazards :p but they are just having to stay in their boxes for a few years. We decided to go Scandi red and white and I got a lot of cheap red, white and neutral felt and fabric decorations and wooden hearts and so on in the sales, gingham stuffed hearts and so on. Also those Livingly Danish paper decorations which often get reduced massively in the John Lewis sale after Christmas. They are actually v pretty and though I'm sure DD is going to squash a few they won't hurt her! Ikea also normally do some Scandi-looking straw decorations which we have a few of. It all looks very cute, in fact, and though I feel rather wistful about my vintage mercury glass baubles in their boxes the Scandi look is also nice and gives a bit of rustic chic.
As well as these we also have some of the Livingly paper decs hung up in the windows and around the living room - they do nice mobiles.
I also gave up having candles, which I used to love, as they are not worth the worry (and I don't trust my sleep-deprived self not to forget I've left one burning!) but on the mantlepiece we have paper house lanterns which are easy to draw yourself and stick together to make out of ordinary paper, with LED battery tea lights inside.
I got some paper chain kits cheap from Cox and Cox in last year's January sale so I'll be making them with DD this year.
I was wondering the other day what my parents did when we were kids, and in fact they just went crazy on the 70s/80s tinsel, plastic shiny baubles and tartan bow trend so they didn't have anything really breakable when we were small either. (Not like my grandma who had those spiral glass 50s-style ones which were prone to smashing!)
I really covet this year's trend of glass baubles with mini snow scenes inside, they're gorgeous, but DD really isn't ready for the temptation/accident potential. I think I'll have to buy some and stash them for a few years' time!