Last Christmas, I found that it was a futile effort to keep him out of the presents/tree. (I didn't want one of those kiddie "gates" around the tree, either.) What worked for me was to wrap one small empty box with shiny paper and let him play with that one. He new that he could touch the one, so he didn't mess with the others too much. As for the tree, I just made sure it was sturdy (so he wouldn't pull it down) and hung only non-breakable ornaments within his reach. He was about 7 months old at the time. But if nothing else works for you, definately try having the "one" gift the can play with... it helped us! Good luck!

1) Don't use hooks for ornaments. I tied ribbons to all mine in a loop, then hung them by the ribbon. Side benefit: Easy to take down and put up again next year. No hooks to fight.
2) I have a collection of all plastic, safe toys that go on all the bottom branches. She and her friends were allowed to investigate them as long as they put them back.

By giving her allowed-to-touch things at her height, she never got interested in the lights or anything else. She also never bothered the presents.

The ribbon thing made it so easy the last two years, that even when I no longer have a toddler in the house, I'll keep doing it.

I've done this myself, but heard it and thought it was a good idea.

The idea was to weight large boxes with a brick or cement block, bag of sand, whatever, in the bottom so the kids can't move them. Since it's bottom heavy, it doesn't tip over, either. And wrap the boxes like gifts and set them around the tree like a barrier -a very decorative barrier. It sounds a little awkward to actually do it, but it might work.

Put the tree in the playpen.

Tie the top of the tree to a ceiling beam, so it won't go over.

Get a shorter tree and put it up on a table.

Yrs ago when my son ( now 15) was little and mobile ...i put the tree inside an old fashioned wood playpen.
We now have a 15 month old ..thinking of doing it again

We opened a Superyard and snaked it around the tree and along the wall. It looked like a white picket fence.

We lived in an apartment when DS was crawling, so we could not have a real tree. So we borrowed a 4 ft on and put it on the dining room table for that year. This year will be the test - he is 2 1/2 and we will be having our first real tree.

We set our very large tree up in a corner and moved the couch crossway in front. It looked great too! Decorated right down to the bottom as on Christmas morning we just moved the couch back to it's side spot and put the gifts in front. Actually most of the gifts were already behind as they can't see them there anyway. By the time Xmas came around she was used to seeing the tree and didn't grap at anything. It was great.

hmmmm seems like a no-brainer to me.. Tell them NO.

khrystyne obviously has never had a toddler. LOL.

Anyway, I agree with the playpen idea. That's what we did with our oldest.

DS will be 9 months by Christmas.We tried the 'tree on the table' idea when DD was tiny and hated it-it just didn't seem right(I like the idea of having the tree behind the sofa, though.Wish I'd thought of that!. We've decided to forego the 'big' tree this year and concentrate instead on decorating the mantelpiece as sumptously as we can afford. I'm going to hang stockings for each member of the family, have angels on the mantel, along with garlands and scented candles. I'v got a couple of little trees to stand on tables, sideboards, etc, and will probably put some of our family's favourite decorations in glass bowls, etc.There's going to be tinsel and Christmassy stuff on every surface bar the floor-so even though we miss out on the tree this year-it's still going to look like Christmas!

Aughhhh! Hadn't even thought about that for my little creeper, and he is into everything at 7 months. The last baby was 2 months old the first christmas, nota problem and 14 months the second one, deffinately understood no by then!!! We will probably put the tree in the front entry where it can be seen from the living room and open the French doors on Christmas morning!

Hmmmmm...... I don't know what we'll do - I think we may try the couch idea - that sounds great!

The first year (6 mos old, crawling) hung the non breakable ornaments towards the bottom and didn't put the wrapped gifts out until Xmas morning. Just stayed vigilant to try and keep him away (lots of luck!). The next year (1 1/2 year old, walking), we put the tree in the dining room and put a fence across the living room door. When he did go in the dining room, we let him look at ornaments, and not touch (yeah, right), only 1 got broken. We also had a wire attached to the tree, attached to the window frame so it wouldn't tip. My BIL had his tree stand attached to a big piece of plywood under the tree skirt so his tree wouldn't tip. This year we have a 2 1/2 year old & 9 mos old (not quite yet walking). I think we will keep the tree in the dining room again. The couch idea is really good too!