These New Parents Put Up a Christmas Tree. Wait Until You See What the Baby Does!

When you have a baby, everything changes, including Christmas! New parents dream of sharing the holiday with their little one, dreams fueled by an Internet filled with adorable pictures of babies in red and green outfits, wrapped in lights and laughing at the camera. We all want that first Christmas to be perfect, but like most things with kids, it rarely goes as planned.

Here’s the obvious-in-retrospect thing everybody eventually learns about babies and Christmas: little ones have no idea that the holiday is even happening! For them, it just means there’s lots of new, usually-shiny things in the house, and that Mom and Dad are acting a little funny— and expecting the baby to act differently, too. But babies will be babies at all times of year, and as this adorable video from Story of This Life shows, their antics make for a Christmas that might not be picture-perfect, but will be just as memorable!

We love this video for how it hits on pretty much everything you’d expect when you combine little ones just learning to explore on their own, and on all the things you don’t think about until you have kids of your own. All those festive, shiny objects you have spread around your home, or those candy canes that are really just “decorative”? To a baby, those are tempting snacks.

The result of baby-proofing trees with toddler-height branches? Your Christmas fir is going to look just a little different this year.

Managed to get the fake food and choking hazards out of the way? Great. Now you just need some luck with the real food. Baking those Christmas cookies with a baby around is a little more . . . challenging.

Of course, we hope that outside of making fun Internet videos, nobody’s actually putting their baby on the counter with the cookie dough, but hey— sometimes mama’s got to do what mama’s got to do.

And babies are going to do what babies are going to do: cry just when you want them to be adorable, keep you up when you really need that extra sleep, and of course – here’s a real classic! – always prefer the box to anything you could buy them.

Feeling familiar? Are you commiserating with these parents? Then you’ve just GOT to watch the rest of their video! It’s the laugh we all need this Christmas season. Check it out!

So funny! I think every parent can sympathize with this harried pair. Now tell us what you think! Did this Story of This Life video ring true to your experiences? How do you make sure your home is baby-proof around Christmastime? Do you have any fun stories to share of your first Christmas as a parent? Share your holiday stories with us!