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
This is a GREAT idea!
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.
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!