This year I have 3 Christmas trees set up in the house.

That’s pretty adventurous when you have 300 pounds of clumsy dogs in the house.

Let’s see……there’s a fake one downstairs for the dogs to look at.

A real tree in the front room for the kids to enjoy.

And a fake white tree in the family room for me to enjoy. This is my newest addition because I wanted a tree to enjoy in the room where I spend the most of my time.

Having 1 tree in the house with a 2 Newfoundlands is challenging.

Having 2 is even more challenging and having 3 might just be plain insane.

I’ve learned over the years that when you have Newfoundland in the house you can’t just decorate the tree as normal.

You have to have a strategy. You have to strategically place the Christmas tree. Where is this tree going to have the least amount of body contact from the Newf? You take into account swinging tails too. I was doing this in the front room this year. “It needs to go more to the left.” I kept telling my husband. “It’s fine.” He kept repeating. He wasn’t taking into account Leroy’s goofy swinging tail as he walked by the tree. Needless to say I was right on my calculations when Leroy walked by the tree and knocked 1/2 the ornaments off. MORE TO THE LEFT! Ornament placement. Our tree down in the basement has no ornaments 1/4 way up the tree. It’s decorated in red and gold ornaments and it’s in a corner BUT it’s in a corner where the dogs are coming and going frequently so they are constantly brushing up against it. I have no place else to put it so it has to stay but don’t worry, the bottom half is decorated in brown Newfie fur. The tree upstairs has all the breakable and really old ornaments on the top. The bottom is non-edible, non-sentimental ornaments. Corners are your friend. If a corner is available that is where the tree goes. My new white tree is tucked away in a corner on a table. It’s still visible to me but it’s totally out of the way of Sherman and Leroy. It was only $8 but it’s white and pretty and covered in little breakable ornaments and I like it. I think it’s the first white thing I’ve ever bought for the house since I’ve had Newfoundlands. Sometimes you need a little reinforcement. When I lived at my parents house, my first Newfoundland knocked down the Christmas tree. This wasn’t a little tree, it was 12 feet tall and it came crashing down when a crazy Newf was chasing his ball. My Dad nailed the tree to the wall after that. Leroy’s almost knocked our tree down a couple of times which is why I’m under strict rules to NOT play with the dogs in the front room until the tree is taken down. Yes. Someone has to tell me NOT to do that because I do it every year. Tinsel is messy. I use to love tinsel on the tree and I still do but I’ve given it up. It’s so messy and most of it would end up on the floor which ended up on the dog which I feared would end up in their stomachs. It’s too much of a liability around here. On a side note: we haven’t used tinsel in over 6 years but it still somehow manages to end up on my floor when the Christmas decorations come out! No presents under the tree. No presents go under the tree until Christmas Eve. No way Jose! Leroy and Sherman have been waiting for Santa Claus for 364 days and I’m not risking presents getting eaten, peed on or stepped on. I’ve seen YOUR pictures and videos. Thank you for the warning. Don’t worry though, Christmas presents will still have Newfie hair somewhere in them or on them. Puppies. Oh puppies!!For the first 2 years that Leroy was with us, our Christmas tree was put in the dining room safely behind a baby gate. No one could hardly see it. The kids were bummed, I was bummed, but the tree was safe. After Leroy was 3 the tree made it back into regular house circulation but we still keep a baby gate up at night just to be safe.

So what about you? What are your tree trimming dog tips?