Christmas decorations

[OohthatlovelyNigelfromBabyClub]

Hello! I'm hoping for help because I'm useless at this. We have small children, and want to make the house look very festive. We have a small tree and don't feel able to change it yet (dog and small children) so tend to stand it on the table, it's fibre optic and we don't use many baubles either. It's about 3/4ft. We have tinsel in gold and red around the lounge, we have a garland for the fireplace but the toddler would pull it off so can't use it this year. We have stockings and some silver tinsel goes around the kitchen.
And that's really it... we don't want to spend a lot of money but definitely need to get some better decs! Can anyone advise how to make it special for the children please?

Sounds as if that would be lovely. When my DD was that age and very into Frozen, we made some snowflakes together out of cut paper in the light blue/silver/white colour scheme, about maybe 20-25 cm, glittered them up with similar coloured glitter glue and hung them up. They look great above or on windows but with a string on can go anywhere high up. I guess youtube will have loads of 'how to do this' recommendations.
I also have some wall lights that can be used to hang baubles or decorations on, although I add some (twists of) food bag ties onto the string loops so that I just twist them round the light arms to get on and off

Thanks, I could make things, the oldest isn't yet two and isn't into crafts yet but I am.
Unfortunately, what I described sounds better than it is. We'll be useless at putting lights up but I could get sticky pads

I can only really think lights and music. My nieces and nephews loved anything that twinkled or played a tune.

Fairy lights are quite cheap and can be hung out of their reach. If you get a coloured set with different settings you can have them flashing, dancing etc.

For children that little I would have thought it's more the atmosphere and fun they enjoy than the actual decorations - play music, dance around and have lights all over the place.

One of those hobbycraft felt trees that the dcs can decorate?
A string of lights around a window if you have any high enough that they can't reach or strung between picture frames etc.
Christmassy stickers for the windows?
If you have any white doors inside such as the freezer, turn them into snowmen by sticking black circles on for their eyes and mouth, an orange triangle for the nose and making a scarf out of squares of brightly coloured paper.

More of a long term project but we have each year bought a decoration with each child. Obviously at first we chose them, but later on they chose them and the ones for their baby siblings. We have a list so we know which belong to each child. When they leave home and get their own tree they will take the decorations with them.

Thank you all, those are good ideas. I just want them to have lovely Christmases as I don't know if I'll be working for the next few. Lights are obviously too important to avoid so I'll get some, I found those felt trees on Amazon, such a nice idea! And I love the idea of getting them their own baubles.

We take DC to buy a new bauble every year - has quite a collection now! When he was a toddler we made salt dough decorations - a couple have survived the years and still now feature on our tree!

I secure my garland to the mantle piece with string and command hooks. They can be removed cleanly after Christmas but that thing isn’t budging in the meantime.

Command hooks are great for ceiling decorations (remember the foil chains from the 1970s) and strings of lights.

I encouraged my toddlers to handle the Christmas decorations carefully and gently, although I use the word “quietly” as it’s easier for them to understand not to make a noise bashing it. Things are more likely to be broken in the panic of mum’s coming so I never forbid touching.

That said, we had our first Christmas tree behind the stretched-out play area railings.

At 2 my dc were fascinated by lights and switches. I had remote control led candles that looked very festive and remote control string lights.

We got some large cardboard cut out figures of Santa and a snowman that I blu tacked at their height on the walls. I also painted white stars and snowflakes on a window (washed off easily after Christmas).

Happy land do a nativity set if you wanted something like that.

For big impact without spending much you could transform existing pictures into presents with Christmas fabric and ribbons or just wrapping paper.

Have a look on Pinterest, there are some fab ideas on there.

Get some mistletoe (we have a silver hanging dec) you can get real or pretend and hang it in the doorway and always stop for a kiss as you go by, my little girls love this, simple but very sweet! On dec 1st we give ours their advent calendar with Christmas PJ's and a Christmas jumper which adds to the excitement!!

@Barbarara I love that idea of wrapping the pictures as presents!! I think my DH might think I've lost the plot lol!!

Lidl has quite nice wooden decorations, try there :)
Also try TK maxx and Ikea.

I made my own wreath, I go foraging for it. It’s so easy.

I ordered some star shaped paper lanterns this year, £.80 from ebay. I’m going to hang them in the window.

I also have one of those bridges with candles on, I bought a battery one, on a timer, it comes on at 4 and turns itself off at 10 pm.

I have fairy lights over the bookcases, really cheap in poundland or ikea.

I bought some string with little silver pegs for the cards that I hang from the side of the shutters.

I have candles everywhere, perhaps you could light them after they’ve gone to bed, or somewhere high up? My DD grew up with candles everywhere, she was fine with them.

We also have little decorations around the house. Particular favorites are tomtens, they look like gnomes, with big pointy hats, you can’t see their eyes, and long beards.
Then wooden reindeers, sparkly candle holders and lots of fairy lights.

It’s taken years to gather them, we but one or two every year, no more :)
HTH

I’ve always had a huge tree with lots of special ornaments on even when I had two under two. The only disaster we ever had was when we had a kitten who ran up the trunk toppling it over!
But I think if you are worried then hanging things from the ceiling (baubles, paper stars/Pom poms etc) can look awesome but you need to be able to get up there. Fairy lights around the place out of reach.

Have an eco Christmas - use what you have and don't buy new tat.

Blutac/tape cards and pictures the kids have made onto the back of a door, use music and scent to evoke the "feeling" of Christmas- the scent of freshly peeled clementines and homemade cookies just brings alive Christmas in our house.

Op I dreaded Xmas Dec's and toddler and in the end they didn't touch or do anything...
You could try bigger tree?
My no one advice is hang stuff from ceiling.. Pretty home made snowflakes... Or whatever... It's so out of every day stuff and unusual..

Last year home bargains hac gingerbread man lights, i used some suckers with hooks and put across kitchen window, dead cute. I also put lights around the living room, just cheap ones from poundland or b and m. Window stickers go down well and poundstrecher had large fridge magnets of penguins, snowman where you can move the parts around, my nephew loved them

What about paper chains? Easy and cheap to make and I think they look festive, plus you can just recycle them after the event. I am planning to have Christmas bunting hung up in the kitchen, just need to get round to sourcing the fabric and sewing it. My mum also window stickers that she uses every year (for the last 25 years!) so you could always look at getting some of those.
I always used to bluetac our Christmas cards to the side of the stairs in the hallway, if that makes sense, but I find we don’t receive enough now for that.

Take the berries off if using real mistletoe. We spent a Christmas Eve is a&e when my dsis was little!

@Parkmama my DH has come to accept that I never had the plot in the first place

@BeyondMyWits I'm certainly not throwing anything away, I dont have much at the moment. I try not to make waste. What you said and @Barbarara came together for me though, I've been given some old felt so can make fake presents!
I might also make bunting and even fabric paper chains, great ideas everyone thank you!

Paper chains! You don't even need to spend ages cutting them out, you can buy pre-cut ones. Age 2-6 my DD LOVED paper chains -- cutting them out, sticking them, hanging them, draping them....and they're cheap and (depending on the paper you use) recyclable.

Paper snowflakes too - teach toddlers and pre-schoolers how to make them (with kids' craft scissors) - stick them on windows or use cotton to string them up along walls, across the room, bookshelves etc.

Our house is not big, so to be honest I find a few decorations go a long way - a string of paper chains, some paper snowflakes on the windows, and some fairy lights at the top of the bookcase is more than enough!

Get some of the make your own decorations kits for kids such as painting baubles and wooden trees etc the kids will love making them and displaying them as well.

Snowflakes on the windows or other reusable stickers - I carefully store ours now as I didn't the first year and the red gel scarf made the white snowman pink!!

Elf door in the skirting board (poundstretcher did a sticker one last year that's still up!)

I have hooks screwed into the ceiling permanently behind the window blinds and hang tinsel and stars etc from them as well as curtain lights next to the window

Our fire doesn't work (blocked chimney - Santa still makes it) and is filled with tinsel/ pine cones etc

Electric candles are fab, Lidl's do ones that have wax exterior and look very real

Bowl of the table with 'safe' decorations (ours has knitted snowmen /giant pine cones)

I also have a wooden advent scene, Santa and reindeer, plastic snow globes, assorted Christmas soft toys that all come out at hand height for small DCs as well as the felt tree (that I spend more time on than the DC it was bought for!)

In the past I made loads of these out of gold and red foil paper, about six inches across, then stuck them up with a tiny piece of bluetack inside a couple of points.
They originally went all around the top of the sitting room walls and around the big mirror over the fireplace.
I am now too unsteady to climb the necessary ladder to put them up! Pity, as they looked very pretty and were flattenned and reused for several years.

Thanks everyone! More great ideas. I'm definitely using most of these