Christmas tips for parents

I had a funny conversation with my sister-in-law this weekend.  She was putting up her Christmas decorations and about 10 minutes after she put up her stockings, her 1-year-old pulled the stocking off the mantle dropping the stocking holder right on her face.  Did I mention we were taking Christmas card photos the next day?  :) 

Secretly, I was like, Oh Yea!  It's a kid that's not ours!  (Sorry Tasha - love you a lot!)

Isn't it always our kids that do stuff like that? 

Tasha told me that I should put stuff like that on my blog because she didn't think that Kenley would walk right up to the stocking and pull it down on her head. 

Well Tasha, just for you, here are the top 10 tips we have learned from personal experience!!!!

1.  Anything that is breakable and is sentimental - hide it.  Don't even take it out of the attic.  The year after my grandma passed away I took special delight in putting out some of the Christmas decorations she left me.  I'm not sure how many pieces got broken before I just started packing them away.  There may have been tears shed. 

2.  Divide your tree into kid friendly (ie botom half) and adult only ornaments.  Even if you think 2-year-old little Jimmy-Jo can delicately push the button on your light and sound Hallmark ornaments, I assure you, he cannot!  He will get too excited and will pull it off and break it or manage to pull the tree over.

3.  Better yet, develop some sort of 'gate' system so the kids can't even get to the tree.  We used the rubbermaid containers from our attic that we store the Christmas stuff in and made a semi-circle around the tree so the kids couldn't get to it.  This also helps with the presents.

4.  Flip your stockings up on the mantle.  When guests come over you can flip them down and hawk your children to make sure they don't pull them on their faces.  Otherwise, keep them flipped up (You're welcome Tasha for this timely bit of info ;)

5.  If you have kids that are over 3, do not put presents under the tree unless you want to be asked 18 million, bazillion times, "Mommy, who is this one for?" or "Mommy, is this one for me????".  Even if you tell them that there are no presents under the tree for them, they will re-ask every day about *every* present just to make sure something hasn't changed.

6.  Get them a kiddie nativity set.  Two reasons for this: Number One - your porcelain baby Jesus will thank me.  Number Two - even kids as young as 1-year-old can learn parts of the Nativity story.  I can remember Daniel's second Christmas (he was around 18 months) there being HUGE fights over who had baby Jesus and tears coming to eyes when we couldn't find Mary.  Get them some figurines they can handle and let them go to town pretending.  You'll be amazed at how much they take in.  We have one nativity set for each kid and try to do the Christmas story at bed each night.  The kids love it and so do we.

7.  Make a paper chain to count down the days.  Write different functions on the important days.  Ours would say, "Mawmaw and Pawpaws House" on December 17th or "MOPS Christmas party" on the 10th.  Put all your events on the chain and then the kids can count down multiple times.  And, you don't have to answer "How many days until Christmas?" fifty million times.  Just send them to go count.  That should give you a couple minutes of precious quiet time.

8.  Skip making the Christmas cookies.  Is that terrible?  Let me rephrase: If you are not Betty Crocker and cooking frustrates you, there is an easier way to do Christmas cookies with your kids.  Buy the tub of premade cookie dough.  Roll it out and bake, then decorate.  If your kids are like mine, there is no way their attention span would last through actually making, then decorating anyway!  Save your sanity.

9.  Play the 'presents' game.  I really like this idea actually.  We were really nervous that our kids would get ungrateful because of the insane amounts of gifts they receive from relatives at Christmas.  We start playing the 'presents' game around the beginning of December.  We "wrap" a gift (usually in a blanket so it's reusable) and give it to a family member.  The family member unwraps it and ooohs and aaaaahs over it.  They think of at least one really nice thing to say about the gift.  Believe it or not, this game is extremely beneficial.  Sometimes the gifts are good, sometimes the gifts are not as awesome.  For example, wrap up a toy and give it to your kid.  They will be pumped.  Next, wrap up a bar of soap and give it to your kid.  Not so pumped.  However, we take this opportunity to explain that sometimes we get gifts that we are not super excited about, but it was still *very* nice of the giver to think of us and bring us a gift.  Now we have to think of something nice to say about the bar of soap.  How about, "Wow!  This smells really nice!"?
Last year I wrapped up a blue bowl for Jeremy and he said, "Blue is my favorite color" when he received it.  Good life skill to learn! 

10.  Keep it simple for your kiddos.  It's easy to be so focused on the kids making good Christmas memories that you pack their schedules too full.  The kids will have better memories if you pick a few activities and make them special instead of trying to jam in every function everyone invites you to.  Trust me when I say, your whole family will thank you.

Alright guys, what do you think?  What are your Christmas tips for parents???