Have I mentioned that I’m a sad, sappy sucker? I think I have. I’m super sentimental. I have boxes of papers I wrote and awards I won in elementary school. In elementary school, people!
No, I’m not a hoarder but I do attach sentiment to a lot of the things I surround myself with. Especially at Christmas time.
Growing up, Christmas was always one of my favorite times of the year. We would pull out our two big brown cardboard boxes that housed the various pieces and parts of our artificial Christmas tree. Half the fun was putting up the tree and the other half was actually playing in the big boxes.
My sister and I staked a claim on each box and thoroughly decorated the inside of each one. Every year, it was a sentimental journey as we stepped inside our boxes. Maybe it’s why I have a soft spot for Pinky Dinky Doo and her story box.
We also put our plastic Frosty and Santa on our end tables. We put our plastic giant candles outside our front door. We put fake snow on the windows and sprayed our tree with artificial pine scent. Then my mom wrapped our front door in metallic wrapping paper to make it look like a giant present.
But my favorite part was decorating the tree. Every year, pulling out the ornaments made me feel like we were rediscovering them all over again. There was the angel my oldest brother made out of yarn. There was the walnut shell I covered with glue and red glitter to make it look like a strawberry. We all had something to contribute. We all had favorites and we got excited about them every year.
Now, I’m a grown up. I guess. And I have my own artificial Christmas tree. No big boxes and it sure looks a whole lot prettier than the tree we had in the 70s. But I still get excited every year pulling out the ornaments. These are my ornaments. These are my grown-up memories and this year was special for me.
Evan is almost 4 years old and I’m realizing that he doesn’t remember Christmas from any other year. Everything is brand new to him. He’s so excited about all of the decorating. He helped me hang ornaments. I gently told him how to evenly distribute them so they aren’t all clustered together. Ah yes. The boy has an eye for design.
The best part was that he asked me about so many of the ornaments. I loved sharing stories with him even though he probably didn’t understand most of them (e.g., where the heck is Paris?).
So between his curiosity and Cecily K recently talking about her ugly Christmas ornament collection, I thought it might be fun to share the journey of my adulthood, as seen through the eyes of my Christmas tree.
This is my Energizer Bunny ornament. Is it special to me? Not really. But it was one of my first grown-up ornaments ever. I was working at a drugstore and they had a special ornament giveaway when you purchased batteries. There were so many left over I took a few to decorate my meager tree.
My very first attempt at being craftsy. Cross-stitch is about as easy as they come. And somehow, it has stood the test of time.
Not the prettiest ornament in the world but it was given to me by one of my students when I was a middle school teacher. I’m not sure if they thought I was really awesome or if their mom made them give it to me.
I started my love affair with travel almost 15 years ago. I did actually get this ornament in Paris when I spent the Thanksgiving holiday there. I have never actually seen Pere Noel climb the Eiffel Tower though.
As my tastes changed and interests developed, I felt the need to reflect that on my tree. So I decorated one year, and every year since, with two of God’s gifts: Brie and Champagne.
I wish I had purchased these myself. These were a gift from my older brother that he picked up for me while he was visiting Russia. He lives in China now. Yeah, he’s world class.
Then, my husband entered the picture. And I dragged him into my sentimental journey. This was a Hallmark Keepsake ornament commemorating the year we were married. Here’s a secret: this ornament is like a time capsule. Inside, we have a little scroll that details how we spent our first year together.
Luckily, he has the travel bug too. We try to pick up ornaments on our major trips. How many people can say they have a Christmas ornament from Haiti?
Or China? No, no, no. I mean, an ornament bought while visiting China. Not an ornament made in China.
And then there were three. Having a child upped the sentimental factor. I found this ornament 2 years ago and thought is perfectly captured our little family of three.
Instead of finding brie and Champagne on our table, you are more likely to find peanut butter and jelly. But they all peacefully coexist on our Christmas tree.
And finally. This year marked the year we all started really traveling again. And what better way to commemorate than a 2010 ornament from our family vacation to Disney World. (P.S. Mickey’s nose fell off).
That’s just a quick tour around my Christmas tree. It’s just a fraction of the ornaments I have. Yes, it’s a very crowded tree. But there’s always room for one more.
Know what would be a great gift to me? If you share your favorite holiday ornament with me. Tell me about it. Or better yet, upload a picture to my Facebook page. I’d love to see it!
30 comments
Oh, what fun! I don’t think I realized you were a teacher, too. No clue where all my teacher ornaments are. Probably in a box in the garage…
My boys made all our decorations last year. It was an interesting looking tree.
I was a teacher for a very long year and a half. It was all I could handle. I don’t want to tell you all the other stuff I got that year for Christmas. Let’s just say I filed them. Circularly.
I’m afraid I am not the sentimental type. I’m currently trying to figure out a way to get rid of all my ornaments to start a totally new colour scheme. My kid’s friends are mortified that I don’t remember what time they were born and how long they were. Oh well… they’re surviving. Their father makes up for it. So glad I found your face book page. What a great way to let your readers know. I’ll have to take a page from your “face” book : )
Have a great day,
Dana
Oh. I see. You’re one of THOSE. One of those that has a themed tree. I bet you even put nice white Christmas lights outside with perfectly hung wreaths on every window and a bright floodlight shining on all your glory. Or not. To each his own 😉
I LOVE it, thanks so much for sharing a peek into your world via Christmas ornaments. I secretly love Pinky Dinky Doo too and hope that my girls will be big dreamers. I think my favorite is between the turtles and the Hallmark keepsake, I didn’t know they had anything like that. My struggle is sometimes I want matching ornaments and uniformity but I love that all of your ornaments have meaning and memory behind them!
I’ve had a lifetime of non-uniformity so it looks a little too boring when everything matches. Now if only I could get my son to get excited about Pinky Dinky Doo…
I’m not all that sentimental about the ornaments on our tree, but I do get a little verklempt about the little collection I’ve started for each of the kids. I buy them a special ornament every year, with the intention that when they grow up and move out (sniff) and get their own Christmas trees, they’ll have a box full of hand-picked ornaments from me. Their ornaments don’t go on our tree now, because we must have rules for this sort of thing. One of these days, though, I’ll get a couple of those ornament display thingies and put a few of their special ornaments out.
Wow. Rules for Christmas! I never would have thought of you as that type. But I love that you are building a collection and I totally love that Crate & Barrel thingy.
Oh major sap here. We buy an ornament every year also usually on vacation. This year we got one from Disney too! It’s so fun to go back through them all each year!
I knew it! I knew it! I got one for Disney years ago when I went to Universal instead because I really wanted to go to Disney 🙂
I have one from Cancun that I didn’t show here. It’s a nice reminder!
This is such a fun idea. too bad most of our ornaments are Star Wars related. Hubs is a huge nerd. However, kids love the tree.
Stars Wars can be sentimental too 😉
Growing up we always had a tree with a hodge podge of ornaments. I never knew there was a “fancy” way to decorate a tree. Then sometime along the way my mother did figure that out and so the hodge podge tree became the kids tree. I loved it because I remembered a lot of the ornaments from growing up. I didn’t know where they came from, but I remember them being on our tree every year. I think I will see if my mom will give those to me so I can add to my own hodge podge tree.
When we got married I wanted to start a tradition of giving each other an ornament…but that never happened. *sigh*
If you don’t mind, I may do a post like this just to talk about some of the ornaments on our tree.
My dad’s wife is very much a Christmas-themed tree type person. But I’m afraid I take after my mother in that regard. I, too, have a hodgepodge tree but ONLY after I have the beads on the tree and the bows on each branch. I need some semblance of order. I would LOVE if you did a post like this.
when I was living with my ex we had a tree every year and over the course of 10 years we collected quite a few ornaments. I gave them all to him. I was convinced I was going to marry a Jew the second time around. Now? I’m not so sure. and I’m actually considering asking for a few of them back.
Even Jews could use a little Christmas once in a while, right? Get ’em back.
I think this is one of the best Christmas posts I have read, ever. I love the detail of every ornament. We started a pewter collection of ornaments when Peanut was born and those are his he puts on the tree. It’s going to be sad, yet beautiful when they leave my tree to grace his.
Love that you are a sentimental sap like me. Thanks for the generous compliment.
Ok, you need to send me your address so I can post you an Australian ornament. Seriously.
(PS I owe you an email … woo hoo!) XOX
Oh yes please!! As long as there is no vegemite involved….
What a fun post, Fadra.
Personally, I think I like the disco ball ornament beside the one you got in China.
Surely that has a story!
That story, I’m sorry to say, is that I wanted some cheap silver balls for my tree and bought that as part of a set from Target.
Or maybe it’s from my days as a wee one partying at Studio 54 with my lavish and single Aunt Gigi…
Oh, I liked this post. The lighting in the pictures is wonderful. I definitely need a better camera..
I could give a tour of my tree , too, and with the pictures? Well, what a great idea for one of those hard cover books of photos you can put together for almost nothing.
So many memories, ….
I have a Nikon D-SLR that I love but I’m still getting the hang of it. If you do a similar post, let me know!!
I definitely share you love of the season and decorating for the holidays. Unwrapping our ornaments is like discovering little gifts. We truly have too many for me to pick a favorite. Like yourself, we also buy them when we travel and as a result our tree is quite full. But as you said, there always seems to be room for one more.
Yay! Another sentimentalist. Is that a word?? You should do an ornament post. I love to see what other people have on their tree!
Okay…I am a sappy sucker for ornaments that mean something to me as well. BUT I have had one TOO MANY ornaments from MIL for her trips around the world. I don’t care where she goes. That Russia one from your bro- yeah, I have that from her.
Don’t you bring your in-law issues into my holiday and rain on my Christmas parade 😉
OMG, I had forgotten the Russian ornaments! What year did I bring those back?
If it was the year you spent the summer in Russia, that would have been 1990. But I know I didn’t get them until YEARS later. I think they were collecting dust on someone’s shelf.