Photo by Arun Kuchibhotla on Unsplash
At my house, my grandson always wanted to be included in anything to do with Christmas. One of his favorite activities was helping to trim the Christmas tree. Including children in holiday festivities helps to create traditions and gives them childhood memories.
Here are some helpful suggestions on how to trim a Christmas tree so that children can be a part of your Christmas celebration.
Bring the artificial tree down from the attic. Remove the child from the top of the box and warn him about the dangers of climbing. Take out the limbs and place them in piles according to their size. Remove the limbs that the child puts in the wrong piles.
Let the child hand you the branches as you insert them into the tree trunk. Remove the limbs that the child inserted in the wrong place while you were busy. Warn the child that the tree may turn over if the branches are not evenly placed. Stand the tree back up and be certain that the child was not injured.
String colorful lights around the tree, starting at the top and winding down around the tree. Remove the lights that are wound around the child. Drape a garland or some bright ribbon around the tree before adding the ornaments. Throw away any ornaments that the child breaks while you are busy draping the garland.
Plug in the lights. Plug in the lights again and warn the child about the dangers of pulling electric plugs out. Show the child how to hang ornaments on the tree. Carefully re-hang any ornaments that fall off. This will be most of them. All the ornaments will be placed on the bottom branches by the child. Resist the urge to move them.
Lift the child up and allow him to place the angel at the top of the tree. Have the child check the ornament boxes to see if they are empty while you fix the lopsided angel. Remove the child from the empty Christmas tree box. Return the empty boxes to the attic. Re-plug the lights.
Look for the missing child until you realize there is only one place left. Go to attic and remove the child from the empty Christmas tree box.
Sweep up the glass from the antique ornaments that were broken during decorating. Warn the child about the dangers of handling broken glass. Put a band-aid on your injured finger. Re-plug the lights again and remind the child that Santa is watching.
Admire the tree, even though all the ornaments are on the bottom branches, the lights are unplugged, and the angel is slightly lopsided.
Humor Columnist Blog 
Sounds like a fun time. Be sure to let him put the angel/star on the top. I don’t put up a tree anymore. The decorations are really beautiful, though, much more elaborate than they used to be.
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You called it. Thanks for the memories.
Saturday, my 8 yr old great grand son will help me put up tree. It should come out pretty well. The tree is small and he is tall.
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My tree is up and the first time my 3 year old grandson saw it yesterday he was absolutely enthralled. He asked if he could take it home with him. Grandma had to say no.
He came over today with his 15 year old cousin and spent 10 minutes trying to talk his cousin into carrying the tree to the little guy’s house which happens to be next door. Right now he’s too excited to start touching yet but I believe Christmas is going to be so much fun this year.
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How sweet. It is so much fun when they are little and everything is brand new to them.
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LOL My cats pull off any ornaments they can reach. They think a Christmas Tree is a large cat toy just for them.
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You can exchange the word child for cat and it would be my house although the cats never intend to be helpful.
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You have to learn to have a lot of patience when children are involved!
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