December 11, 2009

Trimming the Tree Preschool Style

I love decorating the Christmas tree. Each ornament brings back great memories. I remember when I was growing up, my sister and I each had certain ornaments that we wanted to put on three tree. Hubby and I both have ornaments for our tree that we've had since birth. Some of our ornaments are family "treasures," passed on from our grandparents to our parents to us.
It's hard to tell four preschoolers that they need to sit still while you tell them about each special ornament. Instead, I showed them their special ornaments, which they thought was really exciting. They each have ornaments with their names, or pictures, or ornaments they made last year in preschool. They had a blast trimming the tree yesterday.
When I was little, the bottom part of the tree was for me. I was allowed to decorate it however I wanted. It may have looked like sheer randomness, but when my grandmother would visit and try to "straighten things out," I immediately knew when something was out of place. So I let my daughters have at it. This is the result.
Sure, there are spots where you can tell the tree was decorated by preschoolers, but that's the beauty of decorating the Christmas tree. A perfectly decorated tree is just no fun.
We actually managed to get through the entire process with only one broken ornament (so far). Believe it or not, the ornament jumped off the tree all by itself. No one was standing near the tree and then I heard a thud, gasps (all of us), and finally shatter. I think in my haste to get the breakables out of reach I made a major mistake. I put some of them up first, rather than last. In all the excitement and jostling the ornament fell off, hit the carpet (where it did not break) and then bounced to the wood floor where it met its inevitable fate.
One broken ornament could not ruin the day, though. The sheer joy and delight in my daughters' eyes when the tree was finished and lit up was priceless. We still have decorations to put up throughout the house and they cannot wait to see what's inside all the boxes and tubs sitting in our dining room.

8 comments:

Rosemarie said...

That's great - although not the broken ornament part! We have our tree up and about 1/4 of it is decorated - we can't find the other boxes!

Quadmama said...

Our tree is pretty full... but I still feel like we're missing some ornaments.

Stephanie Barr said...

I'm not sentimental when it comes to "things" so I don't have any family heirlooms. I do have an ornament someone gave me after I got married (metal), but the rest that I bought are always plastic. No harm if they fall from the tree, either due to child or cat. And that's harm to child or ornament.

Personal preference. Plus, of course, I'm a safety engineer. I love your method for decorating.

reanbean said...

We won't put up our tree until the weekend before Christmas. I'm not really sure how it will go this year. At 21 months, I'm not really sure what kind of helping my kids can do.

We have a tradition in my family of getting one ornament every year. My grandmother started this when I was born, and so every year I knew I would get an ornament from her with my name and the year on it. I've continued this tradition with my own kids, so now they each have two ornaments that are their very own. I've tried to get ornaments that reflect a bit of their personality or interests, and so far that has worked.

Glad to hear you all had a nice time trimming the tree! Happy holidays!

Becky said...

HAHA!!! I have TUBS all over right now....but I think I have everything I need out....time to put the tubs away so I can take them back out again in about 2-3 weeks to be sitting in the same mess as I am now. Your tree is adorable!

Quadmama said...

I'm having trouble motivating myself to put out anything that doesn't involve the tree. Normally we get everything up the day/weekend after Thanksgiving but things were to hectic around here to do that this year. The tree is up... that counts for something.

Roman and Tiffany said...

Ryla had a blast decorating the tree this year. After she ran out of ornaments she found some little toys and a couple of pair of sunglasses to place in the tree. It was so funny!

Now all she talks about is baking and decorating cookies for Santa.

Quadmama said...

My girls have a small tree in their room. They decorated it with toys, complete with a magic wand for the star, until I dug out some nonbreakable ornaments.

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