Christmas decorating (and eating things off the tree)

Here's a picture of our tree. I know it's blurry but with the flash it just doesn't look as pretty.

All this decorating brought back some fun memories...

Growing up we always decorated our tree with red bows and cookies. Every year we made different kinds and one year we even made little bears out of marshmallows dipped in brown sugar. We (I think my sister did this too) would eat the goodies off the tree and blame it on our little brother. What I find funny about this now is that at the time I really thought I was getting away with something. Like my mom didn't figure us out, I'm sure she was just laughing and laughing. I don't remember really getting in trouble over eating the decorations, I guess that was part of the fun.

The Christmas we spent in California Sweetie was 3 1/2. I was decorating with the usual bows, glass balls and candy canes. She liked to help me decorate by putting on the candy canes. I'm sure somewhere along the way I told her she could eat the broken ones because one by one the candy canes disappeared from the tree and I would find her eating them because they had mysteriously broken. That was the last year I put candy canes on the tree.

The Christmas we spent in Pennsylvania Popcorn was 18 months. I found her behind the tree chewing on something, red all around her mouth. Then I saw the broken glass ball on the ground next to her. She was eating it like an apple. As I was on the phone with poison control I felt like the most neglectful, awful mom. Who lets their kids eat glass ornaments? Apparently I'm not alone because the guy kind of laughed and said that they get a lot of calls about this and as long as it went down okay it would come out okay. That was the last year I used glass balls, I switched to the shatterproof plastic. They still look nice and so far no one has turned it into a snack.

I'm sure Cutie Pie will cause her own kind of trouble, I'm not sure what there is left to eat off the tree but maybe I'll start using cookies so they will have a little something to nibble on!