Kathy Wakile’s Child-Proof

Keep your kids safe during the holidays with Kathy’s helpful decorating tips.

Tis the season to be jolly — but also to be safe and happy. Christmas decorating is something that most families enjoy doing together — but when young children get involved, you have to be especially careful. The Real Housewives of New Jersey star Kathy Wakile shares her child-proof safety tips for Christmas decorating with HollyBaby.com exclusively during a phone interview for Design Spree.

Kathy’s tips:

Place breakables up higher. “Certain things, put them up higher if you’re afraid,” she says. “Put your more delicate ornaments, figurines, decorative items up higher where kids can’t get at them.”
Distract kids. “We used to always have a big train set at the bottom of the tree and a nativity and snow village every year and the kids would just enjoy putting the train on,” she shares. “That would distract them from touching anything. They were in control of the train. That was more fun to them — something that was moving that they didn’t need to touch. On-and-off switch, blow the horn, stuff like that.”

Kathy was lucky, though, with her kids when they were younger. “I never really had a problem with that when my kids were growing up because they just knew that they were decorations and didn’t touch them,” she recalls. “They didn’t think it was out of the ordinary to have them around.”

In fact, decorating for the holidays was a family affair. “We always decorate the house together,” she said. “That’s always a lot fun.”