Our Naked Christmas Tree

Our poor, sad Christmas tree.

In Christmas's past, when we have had a toddling child, we were able to circumvent the destruction of ornaments by either not decorating the lower bows of the tree or by placing our plush ornaments on the bottom.  This year, however, we are having to forgo all ornaments. 

Just after Thanksgiving, I unearthed all our Christmas decorations, fully prepared to "deck the halls."  Raena and Allie surprised us by putting up the tree all by themselves.  RJ and I sat back and relaxed while they did all the work.  Once the tree was up, they started unpacking ornaments.  No sooner would they put one up, that Haydn had pulled it off and bitten it, shattering it in his mouth and then spitting out the pieces.  Higher and higher on the tree they placed them, and still he could reach.  After he had attempted to eat and shattered a dozen or so of our ornaments, I decided that this year, we would simply do without, lest Haydn actually hurt himself or destroy any of the ornaments I actually care about. 

Since then he has also succeeded in pulling our tree over (which made me glad I decided to forgo all decorations) and RJ caught him trying to eat the tree.  RJ was standing on the stairs and Haydn was watching TV, which happens to be adjacent to our tree, when like a moth to a flame, Haydn started slowly walking toward the tree with his mouth open, an entranced look on his face, until he succeeded in placing a branch in his mouth, at which point he simply stopped and left it there. 

Our girls couldn't quite stand not having any decorations on the tree, so they have been plying it with pieces of paper and pine cones.  It will definitely not win any awards.  Such a sad looking Christmas tree it is.