Parent Hacks

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Turn fast food prizes and cereal box toys into kid-friendly Christmas ornaments

in: Holidays & Special Occasions, Organizing Time & Space

Tracy’s hack saves money AND helps create a Christmas tree even little kids can enjoy:

Every year we give my daughters a Christmas ornament that celebrates something that was important in their lives that year. This year my oldest celebrated her birthday with an American Girl doll theme. So, to help her remember the experience, we decided to look for an ornament. In true “hack” fashion, we took one of our old McDonalds American Girl Doll toys (given out in Happy Meals periodically) and hot glued a ribbon to the nape of the neck. Voila! An ornament, and it didn’t cost me a dime!

This isn’t the first time I’ve done this. When my kids were younger we had a separate “kid friendly” tree for them. We allowed them to touch this tree and move ornaments around, etc. Many of the decorations were actually cereal box toys.

Related: Baby shoes as Christmas ornaments

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About Asha Dornfest

Asha Dornfest is a writer, parent, and insistent optimist living in Portland, Oregon. She is the author of PARENT HACKS, co-author of MINIMALIST PARENTING, and co-host of the Edit Your Life podcast.

Comments

  1. Kelly says

    December 10, 2009 at 1:00 pm

    This is a GREAT idea!

  2. adrienne says

    December 10, 2009 at 1:05 pm

    We do something similar here, but use yarn or ribbon without hot glue (so the toy doesn’t get marred).

    Using a small circle of yarn or ribbon and a lark’s head knot, you can have a bunch of great ornaments (and a little less toy clutter around the house) in minutes.

    Lark’s head knot/ornament video: http://babytoolkit.blogspot.com/2007/12/holiday-hack-toddler-friendly-ornaments.html

    We’ve hung everything from teething rings to plastic cookie cutters to small toy trucks on our tree.

  3. Leigh says

    December 11, 2009 at 10:37 am

    Great idea! This year we did a tree just for the kids, and we made ornaments with them to put on it. They love it, and it allowed us to put off putting up the big tree for another couple of weeks!

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About the Author

Asha Dornfest is an author, optimist, and mom of two. She started the Parent Hacks blog in 2005, and turned it into a book in 2016. More about Asha »

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