Crash. . . OH Christmas tree!

In days gone by we have gated our Christmas tree, keeping it safe from dog, from cat, from, well, the children.  This year, with our youngest being a newly minted 4, we figured we were good to go.  Well folks, it went all right.  Rob and I had just cracked open his algebra book this morning when there was a ginormous crash in the living room.  Lissa had apparently squirmed behind the tree and in the course of her "tree explorations" aka tree-mauling, she had torqued the base snapping off one of the supports.  Needless to say this caused the whole kit and kaboodle to crash down.  No ornaments were irreparably broken, Lissa was fine, and likely the base had a hairline crack as I think even my daughters prodigious strength should not have done that.

She was upset, and Lissa's default when she is upset is extreme anger.  She stomped upstairs and when Kirsty went by her room to get our old tree (the small one pictured above) Lissa got up and slammed her door with enough force to rock the house.  Truly.  The force of her rage concerns me.  That is something we are working a lot on.  I know that the cause was really that she was frightened and angry at herself, but I don't want her hurthing herself or anyone else because she goes off in a tear.

So we skipped algebra today (gasp) And I spent some time cuddling her and talking about how we all make mistakes and what we did was tried to make it better when we mess up.  She came downstairs and we got all the ornaments off the tree (which Rob was stuck holding up to prevent more damage!) before I left for work.

So this is the famous Yule tree, take 2 as they say in the movie biz!  We will look for a bigger tree in the after holiday sales as this one really is tiny. But it is filled with an abundance of decorating joy and zeal!