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🎄 Decorating the Christmas tree with kids: tips and traditions
For a lot of families, decorating the tree is when the holidays truly begin. It's also when the picture-perfect version (holiday music, hot cocoa, everyone smiling) meets real life (a knot of lights, a toddler gnawing on a candy cane ornament, one branch sagging under every ornament in the box). A little planning keeps it joyful.
Here's how to make tree trimming with kids a tradition everyone looks forward to.
When to put up the tree
Many American families put up the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving, while others wait until mid-December. There's no wrong answer. If you have a real tree, keep the stand full of water every day so it stays fresh through Christmas.
Toddler- and pet-proofing
- Unbreakable ornaments on the bottom third. Save glass, tiny and pointy ornaments for the top.
- Swap metal hooks for ribbon loops on low branches. Hooks are easy to pull off and are a choking hazard.
- Anchor the tree. If you have a climber or a curious cat, tie the top of the tree to a wall hook with clear fishing line.
- Choose LED lights, which stay cool to the touch, and keep cords tucked away.
- Skip tinsel if you have pets. Cats and dogs love to chew it.
- Careful with food ornaments. Popcorn and cranberry garlands are classic, but small pieces are a choking risk for kids under 4.
Homemade ornaments
The most treasured ornaments are usually the homemade ones: salt dough handprints, paper snowflakes, pine cones dabbed with white paint, felt stars. Make one new ornament every year with your child's name and the year on the back, and you'll have a box full of memories by the time they're grown.
Traditions to start this year
- An ornament a year: each child makes or picks one new ornament every Christmas. When they move out, the collection goes with them.
- Tree-trimming treat: hot cocoa and a plate of sugar cookies, saved for after the lights come on.
- Ornament stories: as each special ornament comes out of the box, someone tells the story behind it.
Steps
- Pick your moment. A weekend afternoon after a snack beats a rushed weeknight with tired kids every time.
- Set the tree in a sturdy stand away from heat vents and the fireplace, and make sure it doesn't wobble. If it's artificial, fluff the branches before decorating starts.
- A grown-up strings the lights first, top to bottom, tucking the wire in toward the trunk. Plug them in and test them before they go on the tree.
- Sort the ornaments. Unbreakable and homemade ornaments go in the kids' bin, while glass and heirloom ornaments go in the grown-up bin.
- Kids decorate the lower half and the front of the tree. Show them how to hang ornaments near the tips of the branches so they show.
- Drape garland or beads after the ornaments, in loose swoops from side to side.
- Lift the youngest child up to place the star or angel on top, and get the camera ready.
- Turn off the room lights, count down together, and switch on the tree.
- After bedtime, it's perfectly fine to quietly spread out the twelve ornaments hanging on one branch.