Decorating for Christmas with Kids

I L.O.V.E. decorating my house for Christmas. With that being said, the way that I decorate and where I have placed things has changed a lot since I've had kids. For example, we decided not to put up our big Christmas tree this year since Charlie is a speed crawler and silently gets into everything. Also? Take a moment to look at the following picture....

This happened last year. I kid you not our tree had been up for 20 minutes when I heard a giant crash. When I asked Drake what happened he said that he pushed the chair over to the tree to try  and get an ornament off which resulted in this giant mess. So, we opted to do a more 'kid friendly' tree and decoration set-up this year.

In our lower living room I set up a table with Drake's Little People Nativity set, his Santa train and his sleigh set. To the left of the table I filled a big basket with all of our Christmas books and movies for easy browsing. In the corner I plugged in the fun Santa Nightlight to give a little more light to the Christmas set-up.

Right next to the Little People toys we set up a small Christmas tree that has ornaments that are either stuffed or are OK for Drake to play with and safe for Charlie. Next to the tree we placed our wooden sleigh and filled it with all plush Christmas characters. This has been a huge hit! Behind the sleigh is our Christmas count-down calendar that my Mom made for us. This year we plan on filling it with little pieces of paper that will instruct Drake to come get a piece of candy from us, make Christmas cookies that night, go look at Christmas lights, etc. I can't wait to get started!

Of course, I have other Christmas decorations up as well (post and pictures to follow next week), but having specific place for Christmas stuff that Drake can touch and play with has totally cut down on him touching all of my decorations that he should not be playing with. We had a great time decorating together and Drake and Charlie love their little Christmas corner.

One last note- If you are thinking of buying any of the above Little People sets , I can't recommend the Nativity set enough. It is so cute and such a great way to teach your kids about the Christmas Story. Drake knows who Baby Jesus is and I can often hear him playing with him (even though sometimes that play includes Batman coming to rescue Baby Jesus) and talking about him. Just thought I would pass on that little tip.