Ornaments Mess

So, in my opinion, there is an annoying down side to having the Christmas tree up for a whole month. The reason is that, here at our house, it's hard to keep the ornaments on the tree with the toddlers around. Today, for example, Daniel was hitting the tree with his teddy bear...

And after he's knocked off a sufficient amount of the sparkly decorations, he took a turn whacking Wes.

I bet it kinda felt like a soft back massage. Thanks Daniel!

So, there have been ornaments all over the floor. During past Christmases, I have been vigilant at quickly restoring them to their place on the tree. This year I'm taking a new approach - I'm putting them back in a box and putting it back downstairs with the holiday storage. I might bring them back out, but I might not. Maybe on Christmas Eve to restore the decorations one last time before the big day. But to do it now, what's the point!? They'll just knock them off again. Owen's taken it to a new level, and all the blue plastic icicles that have been within his reach are now in the garbage, cause he's taken them and put them on the floor and then stomped on them to snap them in half. Then he's proudly come to get me and show me his work - "Look mom! I break it!" I glued back together two of them earlier yesterday when I thought it might have been a one time thing and telling him "No, don't do that" might cease the destruction, but not so. So all the ones on the bottom half of the tree are gone and in the garbage. There are still like 3 on top. But ugh, all this Christmas mess and clutter! Well, it shouldn't be clutter, but it is when the festive things are not kept in their proper place - then it's just becomes a mess all over the floor of things for me to sort again and organize. Mostly ornaments, then the regular clutter of garbage and socks, and the Little People Christmas people are on the floor too -

Right now Owen's moved them into the kitchen, but the camels and shepherds have already had their fair share of time on the floor, and we're just four days into this! So into the box they are going too. I just don't want to pick it up 100 times this year, so we'll see if I put the ornaments back up and on and set up the toy nativity again, or if I just pretend that Daniel and Owen helped me pack things up early this year.