Beck Vass: Why Christmas trees and babies don't mix

The older two are good with the tree but the rather heavy 1-year-old wants to eat it and smash everything on it. Photo / 123RF

Beck Vass reveals the Christmas nightmare that is a festive tree and an intrigued baby.

We've just attempted to put up our Christmas tree.

I say "attempted" because I'm pretty sure this year's tree decorating is going to be a daily activity - because we have a 1-year-old.

I've done Christmas with 1-year-olds twice before, yet I'd forgotten the stress of it.

The first couple of times, we were sensible and didn't bother with a tree.

We were going away for Christmas and it was really just the two of us, because our baby girl was too young to care.

I think we even skipped buying presents, she'd just had an epic first birthday party so was flush with gifts from that. Plus her grandmas had her more than covered for Christmas.

But then we had our boy, and our girl was that little bit older.

Our friends and even daycare had trees and the questions started about why we didn't have one. Because Mummy's a bit hopeless, Honey.

So, my husband took the kids to buy a fake Christmas tree and some cheap decorations to go along with the more "artistic" ones the kids had made at daycare.

Fast-forward a few years and the kids are now 7, 4 and 1.

The older two are good with the tree but the rather heavy 1-year-old wants to eat it and smash everything on it.

The trouble started immediately. The older two set up the tree themselves.

As I was getting ready to leave the house, I went to find the crying baby and discovered him shut away in one of their bedrooms so he couldn't interfere with their decorating.

Kids can be so mean (and also, sensible).

I scooped him up and told the other two to include him.

He pulled the hangy bits off some decorations, rendering them useless.

My life for the next few weeks is going to be a game of cross-fit style medicine ball lunges, as I pick him up and move him away from the tree.

Any presents underneath will be like our paper towels and toilet paper: red rags to a bull. Decorations are coming off repeatedly and being found in odd locations around the house.

It's only a matter of time before there's tinsel in his number twos.

I started helping the kids and found some decorations they made at daycare, some of which are laminated pictures of themselves.

These ones shock me a little more each year by reminding me how tiny they once were.

It's only a matter of time before our baby breaks one and makes the other two, or me, cry.

While my Christmas-loving friends have trees that look like the ones in movies, all matching ornaments with coordinated wrapping paper for the presents underneath, I'm okay with the mis-matched set-up we have currently.

The lights are already dangling off it, having been pulled down by the smallest, chubbiest hands in the house.

It's inevitable that the entire tree will be pulled over. There will be no harm done.

And if there is, then at least one of us was having a good time.