One of my favorite family Christmas traditions is related to ornaments. Each year since my husband was born, his mom gave him a new ornament (at least one – sometimes more!) for the Christmas tree. We’ve continued the tradition with our kids, so each year they each get a new ornament that we’ve selected based on their current interests or personalities. As we decorate the tree, we all have so much fun looking at each ornament and remembering its story. So today I’m sharing a few of my favorites.
These are (very clearly) not any of our purchased ornaments, but I also love the history of so many homemade ornaments on our tree. There’s Jenny holding an ornament she made in kindergarten, back when she was tiny. And Reagan popping out of an ornament she made last year – she’s not overly fond of it because she said she was having a sweaty day, but it’s still fun for us to look at. The ones on the right were made by Lee when he was a little kid. We have several of the kind on the bottom right that we kindly call “monster faces” because they’re all so pretty. Lee loves them. And they’re all so incredibly heavy, and half are broken. But we hang them every year.
Several of our pop culture interests are represented on the tree. Star Wars is featured heavily. That nice shiny and glittery Darth Vader is required to be the highest ornament placed on the tree every year. He broke one year when the cats knocked over the tree and had to be replaced because he’s essential to our tree. We have a few Lion King and other Disney ornaments that Lee’s mom gave me during our early years together before we were married when she added me to the ornament tradition. Angel and Spike from Buffy. Buffy’s somewhere too, but I couldn’t find her when I was taking pictures. Harry Potter is also quite popular on our tree.
On the left you can see a few more of our favorites, Boots from Dora given to Reagan when she was 2, a backwards Barbie given to one of the girls, Gandalf, and Kim Possible in the front. Poor Kimmy has had a rough ornament life. Her leg has broken off several times and its most recent repair with gorilla glue has left her looking a little deformed, or more like she has a cast on her leg that has shifted a bit to the right. Even though it’s blurry I loved this picture of Jenny laughing about it when she pulled her out of the box.
I’ve also been known to get a few personalized ornaments over the years! Lee and I don’t get new ornaments each year for ourselves, but the kids each get one, and I get a family one, often personalized. The one on the left was from last year, the first family ornament including Brinkley! The Little Princess Jenny was from her first or second Christmas – she wanted me to be sure to point that out because she thinks she’s way too old for that. I got the years each gymnast ornaments one of the years they were into gymnastics. And ballet shoes and tap shoes (in the background) during some of their dancing years. And lots of different family ornaments – I really like the one of us on the state of North Carolina.
These two are from our first Christmas tree the year we got married. We have a couple “first year together” ornaments from that year too (even though it wasn’t really our first year together). The Elf Nog on the left was a bottle of egg nog that said it could be turned into an ornament and we didn’t have a lot of ornaments at that time, so we thought it would be fun. And we’ve kept it. Reagan was looking at it this year and looked at the expiration date on the top and said “This expired December 24, 1999!” and then started to open the lid. Even though we’re 99.9% certain we cleaned that thing out before turning it into an ornament, we both yelled, “No, don’t do that!” because if it smells like anything in there, it’s not something good. The ornament on the right was from a set of 12 traditional glass ornaments Lee’s mom gave us that first married Christmas – we’re down to two. They’re a little too breakable.
These are this year’s ornament selections for the kids. I went with an animal theme this year. An owl for Reagan because she loves them. A pink flamingo for Jenny because she thinks they’re fun and often draws them, and a dog above the pink flamingo for Brinky because they’re still his favorite animal. I haven’t ordered our family ornament yet, so it will be added later, but I’m thinking about the one I mentioned in my etsy post last week.
Finally (at the end of what feels like one of my longest posts ever) our decorated tree – and Reagan:
If you survived the reading of this long post, tell me about your favorite Christmas tradition.
P.S. If you’re wondering, all the personalized ornaments shown above were purchased from Personal Creations, one of my favorites I forgot on my Big Giant List of Holiday Shopping Ideas, but they are on ebates with 8% cash back right now!
P.P.S. If you need some holiday cleaning help, don’t forget to enter my Stanley Steemer giveaway!
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Those are the best christmas trees. The ones full of nostalgia no matter how tacky they are. This year our ornament was the moose mug from Christmas Vacation. It’s epic.
Sounds awesome!
We have a very similar tree with homemade and new ornaments added each year. It’s so much fun to open the boxes each year and oh and ah over the ornaments as we put them on the tree. We got a pack of wooden ornaments this year that the kids could color and decorate… they are all over the tree now too!
Susi recently posted..Scenes from a fight {Wordless Wednesday}
We have some of those colored wooden ornaments, too
Isn’t it so much fun?
Love it! Traditions are great – and we have the exact same ornament with our names and the stockings (obviously ours says The Auers… lol)
Kerstin @ Auer Life recently posted..Insane
I just love the personalized ornaments!
We have the same tradition in our house. Love it!
Those homemade ornaments are the best. We lost the ones from when my kids were little (they’re 11 and 13) a few years back when our basement flooded. I’m still so bummed about that.
Kathleen recently posted..#iPPP Sunday Funday (a.k.a. Groupie Gone Wild)
Oh, that’s sad. At least when you continue the tradition you always add more!
These are awesome! I am a December birthday- so have always gotten some at that time too. My mother in law gave us the family stocking one years ago- but that was before the twins. I feel bad putting it up since they aren’t on it!
We actually think it’s fun to see our older family ornaments with one kid, then two, and now three…shows what our family was like over the years
Chris and I were given the same glass ornaments as one of our wedding presents back in the day. I only hang those closer to the top and so far so good!
I also love that you have Buffy The Vampire Slayer ornaments on your tree!! You have no idea how much that made me just laugh. I loved that show. I’m pretty sure the only reason that I watch Bones is because I loved Angel so much.
Kristen recently posted..Christmas Tradition
I think we lost most of our glass ornament set during a couple of the cat incidents where the tree fell completely over – being at the top didn’t protect them then
We are a Buffy-loving family. It was a little embarrassing in third grade when Jenny wrote 20 pages in her school journal detailing everything she could think of about Buffy though 
Also, we’ve never watched Bones, but I still kind of want to! May be up next on Netflix.
I’m totally with you. Our tree has the best ornaments and they all have meaning. I collect angel ornaments, so there are tons of those. Lots from my childhood and Kelseys, plus a few ornaments for Luke now! Plus, we have several for the two of us and ones we have bought on our trips (we buy an ornament every time we go on vacay so we can remember it.) Those are the best kind of trees!
Amanda Austin recently posted..Two
Oooohhhh..I like the vacation ornament idea for lots of fun memories!
This is so cute! I love how happy Jenny looks. I used to LOVE decorating the tree at Christmas. Zero and I don’t have any Christmas traditions, but the other night, I had fun telling him all about how awesome Christmas was for me when I was a kid. My parents were always so into it, and they made it so fun for us. We always listened to a lot of Christmas music, and my mom had a million decorations she’d put up. In Pulaski, I especially loved when my dad would put lights on the blue spruce in our front yard. It was really a magical time. It’s so sweet that you and Lee make it such a fun time for your kids, too. I’m sure they’ll cherish these memories just like I do mine.
Charlotte recently posted..To Kruppy With Love
Your mom was just a little into Christmas
Lee was talking about the lights on the blue spruce when we were decorating the yard this weekend. It’s looking pretty tacky, but we like it anyway.
I LOVE those, and I love the pictures of your kids with them. I’ve gotten some personalized ornaments in the past, but I really need to remember to get one every year. Thanks for the reminder!
Greta @gfunkified recently posted..The Ugliest Run #iPPP
And now your comment is reminding me (almost a week later) that I still need to order our family ornament!!
Yay. Love your tree and all your ornaments. I just finished our tree a few minutes ago. I was thinking how it really does represent our life together. I was tired and thinking — why do we have all these ornaments? Then I realized how long we have been together. Our tree is so much work to get up but it is such a symbolic representation of the life we’ve built.
Jamie@SouthMainMuse recently posted..A little something for me.
Man, you said that so much better than I did, Jamie
Oh, how much FUN!! My folks did a similar thing, and I remember acting embarrassed as a too-cool teenager, but secretly REALLY enjoying the tradition. I always felt a little sad for my rich friend that had the professionally decorated matching-ornament tree. No. Fun. (That owl ornament at the end is to-die-for; LOVE it.)
nerdmommathfun recently posted..Parkour toddler and Christmas preparations begin.
Yeah, I probably wouldn’t have loved it during the teen years, but I think it’s awesome now. (Bonus – the fun owl ornament was only like $4 at World Market!)
I’m starving now…thanks! I want one of everything. That may be a lie, there are a few like the butterscotch buns and rolo cookies that I may want more than one of.
And crock pot mashed potatoes…I’m on it!
Kristen recently posted..Tweens Think They Have All The Answers
Writing that post definitely made me hungry