Babies and Christmas Trees Don't Mix

Of course, babies and Christmas trees are ok if the baby isn't crawling, or if the baby is 18 months old or so and has been taught to not touch.  But a seven-month-old crawler?  I wasn't about to stress myself out by putting a Christmas tree within Dominik's reach.  Maybe if he was an only child...but he's not.

So we did what we've done several times before when there have been crawlers in the house:  we put the tree UP.

Here's a picture of what we used to do with the tree:  put it on a bookshelf.  That's me in front of the tree with Lukas and Natalie, right before Tom and I headed off to the hospital to meet Konrad.  Natalie had just turned two and she was crawling and quite interested in shiny objects.

But we don't have that bookshelf any more, and there isn't another piece of furniture to put the tree on, so Tom came up with this idea:
he built a pedestal with crates, with a 10 pound dumbbell inside.  He taped the pedestal together, then taped the fake tree to it.  Then I covered the pedestal with a white tablecloth, then with our tree skirt.  Voila! 


Here's Lukas posing with the tree attached to its pedestal.  Dominik isn't quite interested...yet.

 

Putting some of the first ornaments on the tree.

Our tradition is to have champagne while we're trimming the tree.  I got sparkling pomegranate juice for the kids, which Konrad enjoyed.

He said, "I want to 'tink'!"  We always say "tink" when we toast with the kids, since their plastic cups don't make the proper glass sound.

Natalie is sure she can find some tape on this Christmas ribbon.

Yes, I'm teething.  Why do you ask?

And the tree is done!  Now we can wrap some gifts...although I don't know how Dominik will ignore them...he loves to chew paper.  I asked the kids to stand by the tree.  Of course Dominik has to sit, so Lukas sat next to him.  Natalie wanted to stand.  Konrad didn't want to be in the picture...until I took a few photos without him, then he decided he did want to be in the picture.

And just because it's fun to look at "old" pictures, here's our best photo from Christmas 2006.  Natalie was one, but wasn't crawling yet, so we could have a big tree on the floor.  She actually wasn't even sitting up well yet, so we had her sit in a Bumbo for this picture.  Lukas was 2, almost 3.  Look how much Lukas and Natalie have grown!

Whew!  We finally have Christmas decorations up!  Next on the list is making Christmas cookies.