My* almost-two-year-old, Liam, is one of those toddlers who seems bent on as many emergency-room visits as he can rack up. He's a climber and an explorer. Unlike my eldest, Noah, who is now 7, who approached things with some caution, Liam's world is his oyster: Meant to be pried apart. This year Christmas posed a bit of a challenge. Because although yes, there are lots and lots of options for how to protect your Christmas tree...gifts...candles from toddlers, I quite frankly have gotten tired at playing defense (everything important and toxic in my life is living above my own eye level). I live in the east end of Toronto (Scarborough) in a typical 1960s bungalow, so we don't have a formal living room, just the room we actually live in.   Our family's answer to Christmas with toddlers: Cookies So instead of buying baby gates and clips, my family and I sat down to decide what is most important to us. Now if for you it's just not Christmas without the tree, I get that. But for us, it came down to family, doing crafts together and baking. So instead of stressing over how to fasten the tree to the wall, we decided to put our time and energy into the things we love. But...best laid plans and all, over the weekend Noah started to get upset that we didn't have a tree. So between Pinterest and my husband's willingness to deal with white glue, we came up with this solution (at left; click through on the post title to see the picture of our 2-dimensional tree!) We're hanging it today and arranging everything beneath it tonight. Because it's not just about priorities, sometimes it's about listening to your child. (We also talked about putting the tree up in his room, which I might do instead if I had it to do over.) Hope your holidays are bright and your family has as much fun as we have been! What's made the holidays feel right for you?
Our cookie list:

• Sugar cookies
• Monkey squares
• Russian tea cookies
• Triple chocolate cookies
• Lemon poppy seed thins
• Cherry biscotti

*And by the way, who am I? I'm the newest member of the web team here at Canadian Living; for the last 5 years I've been the web editor at More.ca. I'm turning 42 in January and had my little guy at 41. I'm really excited to get to know you all - well, this and next year!