I stopped to visit a friend of mine today. She is pregnant, has a 13 month old and watches another girl's 14 month old. She also has a full-size fully decorated Christmas tree in her living room. She is very good with the kids and very good at keeping her munchkins and her tree safe.
I, at the same age, was much lazier.
I was married, had a 2 year old, a 5 year old, 2 stepsons, 4 inside dogs, 2600 square feet of white wool carpet in an old constantly renovated farmhouse with 11 interior sliding glass doors.
The first year that we were in the house, I combined the following three items:
Yep, I put the tree in the playpen and decorated the playpen with garland. It worked excellently well! The tree and the presents were corralled and I did not have to spend the whole holiday yelling. (I was a yeller!)
The next year, we put the tree in the formal living room - the one with the fireplace and the cathedral ceiling.
We hung it upside down.
Still safe from kids and dogs - but no safe place for the gifts!
9 comments:
That's a stroke of genius, using the playpen. Of course, they aren't made nice and big and wooden now. I'm avoiding putting up the tree because I just know my daughter will destroy it!
How in the world did you hang it upside down? Love the playpen idea and I was a yeller too. :(
I want to know how you hung it upside down, too. Do tell!
maybe you should have hung us kids upside down from the ceiling then the tree AND presents would have been ok :-)
We need the WHOLE story....how the heck did you hang it upside down???
Ok, folks. It was an open beam ceiling. 4 eyes bolts in the trunk, several eye bolts in the beam, wire through both, along the beam and anchored in the studs. I draped garland over every exposed wire.
You know that's a huge trend with wealthy people now? There's an upside down tree that sells through some catalogue for $600!!!! And it's sold out!!!
You could have been rich, is all I'm saying.
That is pure smarts! And, why didn't you patent that? Cat's right. You coulda should woulda been rich!
HA HA! in the playpen - priceless.
We had to tie our tree to the wall one year - but only because it was too big and top heavy and kept wanting to fall over.
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