On this installment of Friday Favorites, I thought I’d share with you my favorite Christmas ornaments. Like most families, we’ve been collecting ornaments for our tree for many, many years. We add in a new “family” ornament each year and if the kids made any trinkets for the tree we’ll hang those too.
It’s Friday so it’s time for a new edition of Friday Favorites. Check out Erika, Andrea and Narci’s blogs as well!
I noticed this year, as the kids were hanging the ornaments on the tree that there were a number (15-20 or so) that no one was reaching for to hang. In years past I’ve been a stickler on making sure each and every one was hung up. But this year, I realized that maybe those passed over ornaments no longer mean anything to anyone. And sure enough, when I looked more closely, I saw that the left overs were just “filler”…ornaments with no memory or meaning attached to them. When I was sure everyone was done, I gathered up the left overs and placed them in a zip lock bag. I figure if no one notices/asks for any of them before the tree comes down for the season, that I will just donate those guys. Why keep something around, taking up space, if they don’t mean anything.
Anyway…onto this Fridays special addition of favorite Christmas ornaments!
family ornaments
Nick and I were married in 2005. Now Meghan and Sarah were, of course, already around by that time, but we started collecting “family” ornaments the year we got married and created this new family. But don’t worry we have things hanging up that pre-date 2005…the big girls created a number of cute things when they were tiny that still make their way onto the tree each year.
Every December it was fun to choose the design for our personalized family ornament. There are so many choices! But in 2013 (when it was clear our family was complete!) we switched over to having our yearly ornament reflect something we did together as a family during that year. Our first was a family trip to Disney World! Since then we’ve done a couple of cruises, a trip to New York City and this year we chose a beach style chair. Even though we didn’t all actually go on that trip to the beach…it seemed fitting seeing as how that was the little kids first time doing the whole beach thing. While I love all of our family ornaments I especially love the ones that show off a piece of our year together. (sorry, I see that 2009 is missing…must have overlooked that one when I was taking pics!)
baby ornaments
This next batch are super special to me…as they tell my story of becoming a mom 4 times over.
In 1996, I was looking forward to the birth of my first child who arrived late April of ’97.
meghan audine
Confession…this isn’t Meghans original baby ornament. The first one, a cutie little clay baby wrapped in a “blanket”, broke after enduring 7 moves in 8 years and being hung up 19 times. I replaced it two years ago. I think the lady at the personalized ornament stand thought I was crazy when I asked her to write 1997 instead of 2016! haha!
angel baby
December 19th, 1999…I miscarried at 12 weeks along. I hang this little angel to remind me of the little lost one every year. Interesting, it was only this year that one of my kids asked about it. Up till now, it’s just been hung like every other ornament, but this year Joshua asked what it was for. When I told him the story or the baby who wasn’t meant to be…he said “That’s really sad…he would’ve been my big brother”. Funny, I always thought of that baby as a boy too.
Cute story…A while after I miscarried and long before I was pregnant again, two year old Meghan was taking her nightly bath. I was skimming a magazine while she played. Out of the blue she looked up and said “When God gives us another baby, her name will be Sarah.” Then she went right back to playing. It was odd. We didn’t know a soul named Sarah and, let’s face it, it would have been far more likely that Meghan would have told me that our next baby would be named Blue…you know after her favorite show…Blue’s Clues! haha! I didn’t give much more thought to her words until a year later when we found out we were having a little girl. Of course her name HAD to be Sarah! Meghan (and God!) said so! 🙂
sarah aubrey
sofia marie
10 years after my first baby, my third daughter entered the scene. 🙂
joshua nikolas
It’s a BOY! I finally got to cross over to the blue aisle at Target! LOL! And with this guy our family was complete.
I hope you enjoyed this little tour of my favorite Christmas tree ornaments! Hanging these ornaments is special each and every year. What about you? Is your tree a mish-mash like ours or is it straight out of a magazine? I’ll admit that each year I think about what it would be like to have a tree that is glamorous and coordinated, but I think I’d really miss seeing these guys grace our tree. Maybe something I’ll have the best of both worlds…the fun, family tree in one room and a lovely, decked out with balls and ribbon tree in another. 🙂
(In case you missed it, here’s part one and part two of my Christmas House Tour.)
