My almost 3-year-old is busy, busy, busy rearranging our Christmas decorations as fast as she notices them.

It started as soon as we got the boxes down. As soon as we sat one down and turned to get the next one - she would have the top off the one we had just set down, going through it like there was a bucket of candy at the bottom - flinging stuff out, left and right. It was non-stop, "What's this mommy? What's this Daddy?" "LOOK AT THIS!!"

I tried to be patient, but everyone knows that to decorate your house for Christmas, first you have to have a BIG mess. There's garland strewn from one room to another; holiday regalia unpacked with no place to go until you take down some of the non-holiday stuff; and lights all over the place, sadly crunching as one person after another steps on them, no matter how much you beg them to pick them up.

And adding a toddler to the mix can make the mess exponentially BIGGER.

Not wanting to ruin her excitement - it IS exctiing - I tried to keep my cool and create some Christmas decorating traditions for her that included her in what the rest of us were doing and restrained her from breaking and destroying things.

Here are some ideas we came up with: 

Candy Canes: I had picked up a few $1 boxes of candy canes to put on some presents and decided I had a much better reason to open them - The Christmas Decorating Day Candy Cane Extravaganza! Simply put, DISTRACT WITH CANDY. Her brother was really into this idea - he was all for demonstrating.

Nix the Christmas music - it's time to debut your handy DVD collection of Christmas Cartoons and Shows: Everyone knows your kids will sit still longer if they're watcing some riveting cartoons. ( I mean, you do this too, right?). We turned off the Christmas music (Ken was really heartbroken about this) and turned the TV on for the 2011 debut of  "Frosty the Snowman" and "Rudolph." 

Christmas Decorating Toddler Style: I gathered up all the Christmas tins, soft door hanger things and Christmas books and put Emmy in charge of them. I emptied out one box, put all these things in there and earnestly asked her to "please help me put these out." I handed her the whole box and told her she could put them anywhere. 

Our Creche Keeper: This next idea will not work if you have an expensive creche display. I don't. It's one my grandfather gave me years ago and I treasure it. But it's not too fancy and the people aren't too breakable. I mean, they made it through Thomas' years as a toddler creche keeper. (And I recently saw at Towel Town, they have my replacement people, if I need some). 

Emmy had already found the "barn", so I swept her Lego people out of it and showed her the people that really go in it, telling her the Christmas story as I did it. Making a BIG DEAL, about how precious all the people were, especially the baby Jesus. "Do you think you could set the people up for me?" I asked her seriously. She solemnly nodded and got to work.

As I rummaged around looking for my Christmas ribbons, I heard her talking as she worked and stopped to listen. Let me tell you, there's nothing like hearing the Christmas story told via a small child. They don't get it anywhere close to right, but somehow, it's the best version EVER.

"Mawy, Mawy, your baby is Jesus and he loves me," (followed by a spontaneous, abbreviated version of Jesus Loves Me)

"Heaw come some people to bwing you pwesents cause its yor birfday!" (followed by a spontaneous version of Happy Birthday).

"You a good baby," (followed by Mawy leaning down to kiss Jesus).

I couldn't resist  - I leaned over and hugged her tight.

"You're a good baby too, you know," I whispered.

"I helping, mommy?" she asked, turning around to peer at me, very seriously.

"Yes, you're helping," I said. And hugged her tighter.

She takes her creche keeping duties very seriously. Every night she puts them all to bed - laying them down. In the morning she wakes them all up and everybody gets back into position.