Sunday, November 29, 2009

The Special Tree

Yesterday, the kids and I had a great time making ornaments and decorating the “special tree”. After thinking long and hard about how I could possibly avoid having Madeline destroy all the ornaments on our big tree, I came up with the “special tree” idea.

Maybe if Ethan and Madeline have a tree they can touch all they want, they’ll leave the real tree alone! So we printed little Christmas pictures off my computer, cut them out and laminated them, and then hung them all over the tree. We also had fun making the paper chains to go with.

Now when the two of them start getting too close to our real tree, I smile and say, “lets run to your special tree!” Amazingly, it’s working! Ethan and Madeline both join in a little chorus singing, “special tree, special tree!” And now Ethan’s favorite new activity is to rearrange the ornaments. He spent quite a while last night changing them all around, “I’ll put the gingerbread man here. I’ll move the penguin here. The Santa will go here” . . .

I love our special tree!

5 comments:

Justi said...

What a great idea. You are so creative, Rach!

Lourie said...

I second that. It's a great idea. Ryan wants to touch the tree every chance he gets.

Stormie said...

I agree, great idea! I might have to try this down the road ...

Emmy said...

Great idea! This is the first year in a while that we have been able to decorate the entire tree (i.e not just the top half) there are clumps of balls at the bottom, it is fun :)

Shelley said...

Hmmm...I think I will be finding a small tree on clearance after this year and making it the special tree. That's brilliant!