Felt Christmas tree fun

I love this time of year! I have been seeing so many pictures of everyone's Christmas trees and I can't wait to go cut ours this weekend! Last year was Bug's first Christmas but he was too little to really appreciate it. At 16 months, he's more excited about the fun decorations and tasty treats.

I am a little concerned about the tree. He's at the stage where he likes to take things apart or down. For example, one of his favorite activities it taking all the alphabet magnets off the fridge and throwing them around the kitchen. I don't mind so much with the magnets but I'm not sure I want that happening with the ornaments on the tree. I have a feeling that our gate we use to keep him corralled in the living room will be moved to protect our tinsel and bulbs.

While I will have him help decorate the tree, I wanted to make him something that he would have free range over. The solution: felt! I made Wiley a felt picture of  jack-o-lanterns around Halloween but there were too many small pieces and he wasn't really into it (though the kids at library story time loved it!). I wanted to make him a felt tree with ornaments that he could put up and take down as he pleased and I wanted to make it big (well, in toddler proportions). I got lucky and found felt cutouts of snowflakes and Christmas shapes (tree, star, ornament, etc) at Target in the dollar section, which saved me the hassle of making them. Then I bought a 36"x36" piece of green felt from Amazon for the tree. And voila, a toddler Christmas tree! 

At first he just pulled all the 'ornaments' off and threw some at me. Then he would put one on the tree, look at it, then tear it down. Then he'd put two up and repeat the process. It was pretty cute. While I don't think this will stop him from wanting to tear down our real tree, at least he can have some fun with this one without hearing the word no or giving me a heart attack that the whole thing is going to topple down on his head.