This year I was SO EXCITED to decorate our new house. I was kind of bummed for a minute though because we don’t have a fireplace. That was until I decided to decorate our bar like it was a mantle! Our Christmas tree from last year is a little bit too small for our new home, but I plan on getting one after Christmas on sale. I had so much fun decorating this year and I love how everything turned out. In today’s post I’m sharing all of the details, some great tips to save money on Christmas decor, and how I baby (toddler) proofed our tree!
HOW I SAVED MONEY ON CHRISTMAS DECOR:
This year instead of immediately going to Hobby Lobby, Target, etc and spending entirely too much money, I got all of our Christmas decor out first. I was going to buy new garland, but I used what I had first and tried to make it a little bit different than last year. I sadly opened and immediately closed our Christmas trunk that’s full of beautiful ornaments because you know, #toddlermom. After getting everything out and adding all of the ribbon and garland I had, I figured I only needed more unbreakable ornaments, some plain wooden nutcrackers, and a tree topper. I did like our tree topper last year, but this year I just wanted to switch it up since I used mostly the same ribbon as last year. By getting everything out first and taking inventory, I saved SO MUCH MONEY! It’s crazy how quickly you can forget what Christmas stuff you have. It just accumulates over the years and if you don’t use everything you have every year, it’s really easy to forget about!
Our Christmas tree is from Walmart and speaking of forgetting about what you had, I totally forgot that this tree wasn’t very big! It looks pretty tiny in our new house, but I only had one day to decorate so getting a new tree just wasn’t an option. I did want to build a Christmas tree box since it would help with toddler proofing the tree, but I’m not sure I’ll get to that this year. There is a great tutorial on this blog on how to build a tree box!
HOW TO BABY (TODDLER) PROOF YOUR CHRISTMAS TREE:
Buy unbreakable ornaments. Typically these ornaments are on the larger size, so I found I had to buy less of them- yay!
Use pine stem pipe cleaners to attach unbreakable ornaments! The artificial pine on these pipe cleaners blends in with the Christmas tree and you can just twist it tightly around a branch. That way your toddler can’t get the unbreakable ornaments off in the first place. I know the second Jett got one off the tree, he would instantly think the tree had fun balls all over it. He hasn’t been able to get any of them off yet- hooray!
Use unconventional ornaments that won’t break. I’ve had these wooden nutcrackers for years (I used them for Jett’s gender reveal!) and loved how they looked on our tree last year. This year I got more and left them unpainted. You can always save a few and have a Christmas craft for your little one! I put them on the tree with the pine stem pipe cleaners as well!
Everything that we used (or similar items) are linked under the photos above, or you can shop everything below! If you buy anything I’ve recommended, make sure to tag me in you Instagram stories so I can see! Happy Holidays, y’all!
Xo,
Haley
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