Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Our Life, in Ornaments

The thing I love most about putting up our Christmas tree is getting out the ornaments. We have ornaments that mark the milestones in our life and I love reliving memories as I unpack each box.

This first one is old- I hesitate to say it could be old enough that I inherited it from my mom and that it dates back to trees of her own youth. It’s old. I have a few in this style and they are very precious to me.

child1

This one is hard to see. When I was growing up, the Sunday School always gave each child an engraved ornament. It was always one of these metal cut out style ornaments and it had your name and the year engraved. As a child, I went by my first name (Meri) and this was from 1984 (I was 10 years old).

meri84

2 ornaments. My mom did a lot of plaster crafts with my brothers- and does some with my kids. She says it is easy to make the plaster figures and then kids can decorate with paint, glue and glitter, markers, etc. These 2 are part of a set from 1996- and were decorated by my brothers. Ted, now a sophomore at University of Dayton, was 7 and Daniel, now a junior in high school, was 4.

ted96

dan96

The first ornament for Jeff and I- Sweethearts, 2001.

orn2001

New home, purchased 2002.

newhome02

2003- the year we were wed.

wedorn03

Our Frank Sinatra ornament. Purchased because it plays our song- “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”

frank

Teagan’s First Christmas- a hand painted ornament made by Grandma. 2005

teag1st

Zach’s First Christmas- second child syndrome evident already (note the lack of photo in the picture frame). 2007

zach1st

Just before Christmas 2007, we lost one of our 2 dogs. It was heart breaking and we all still miss her a lot. Teagan talks about Ginger regularly, with no prompting. And when I crack open the box of Christmas ornaments, I love finding the holiday pics of Sassy and Ginger with Santa (yep- well before I had kids) and the ornament of a gingerbread dog named Ginger.

gingerorn

dogs

So now I am searching for the ornaments that will be purchased for this year. I buy my kids a special ornament each year for their own collection. And this year, I want to find an ornament just to mark where we are as a family. I’ll keep you posted and am open to suggestions!

9 comments:

Amy said...

Reliving the memories that ornaments bring is my favorite part of decorating the tree. I love hearing the kids recall where certain ornaments came from. Thanks for sharing yours here.

Garret said...

I love ornaments. They tell great stories! Look into the different Hallmark collections for your kids.

Karen M. Peterson said...

I love going through our ornaments every year and remembering where they came from and who made what.

This is such a great post!

Heather said...

I love the Frank Sinatra one! We don't have a tree up yet, but I love the idea of this post-- Personally, I get my ornaments all over the place. Target, Macys, Hallmark, Nordstroms.. Pretty much wherever I fall in love with one, I buy it. When I was a little girl, my Gram used to buy the "featured" ornament from Marshall Fields, but they are gone now. :( I loved that as a kid!

I can't wait to see what you find!

Teacher Tom said...

My mom has been buying me an ornament a year for 47 years now. Since we decided to go enviro and switch to a smaller artificial tree, I don't have room for them all, but I still like seeing them each year.

yodaobi said...

I know they don't look as pretty but I think home made ones mean more. Teagan and Zach are great ages to make some cool ornaments. I saw some here: http://www.betterbudgeting.com/homemadechristmasornaments.htm

yodaobi said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eternal Lizdom said...

We have plenty of homemade ornaments as well!! That could be a complete other post!

Amy said...

I love that! We have a new ornament made every year. We have since we started dating. It is so awesome to look at them every year and add a new one to the collection.