So many ‘favorite’ things about Christmas and the holiday season. Snow. Carols. Stocking stuffers (yes, my hubby and I do stockings for each other!). Christmas cookies. But a big time favorite of mine is decorating the tree. We have a whole day (or afternoon if we’re rushed) for this – complete with Christmas music, eggnog, and time sitting in the glow of Christmas lights afterwards.
Each year I try to come up with a “theme” with varying levels of success. I’m no Martha Stewart. Whatever the theme, after the matchy-match decor is on the tree, my husband and I put the “family ornaments” on one by one. This is the part I love. Each ornament has a story. A meaning. A memory. Some ornaments I brought with me from my childhood. Others we collected since we’ve been married.
Whenever we travel, we try to find a Christmas ornament indicative of the locale. These souvenirs may only come out once a year, but that is part of their charm. They don’t get thrown out, grow dusty, or become so part of the decor they fade to meaningless-ness. Because we see them once a year and give them a special place, they have much more meaning. Unfortunately, at the time of writing this post, our ornaments are still under wraps in the attic. But I was able to dig up these two old photos to show you what I mean!
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| The lighthouse and running wild horses from our 2008 trip to Chincoteague, VA |
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| A tropical fish from our honeymoon in St. John, USVI |
We have a wooden moose from our trip to Seattle, WA, and a metal moose from our trip to Camden Harbor, ME. Sometimes, I lose track of what else we have, so each year I “surprise” myself all over by what I find in our Christmas box! It’s so much fun to pull out an ornament and have an “oh yeah, remember when we…” time.
So my holiday tip for you (which may be one you can’t use this year, but can think about for years to come), is to create a “tree of memories” by collecting ornaments that remind you of a special place you have visited.
Do you decorate a tree at Christmas? Do you collect a certain kind of ornament?
Crunchy Beach Mama
Saturday 6th of November 2010
Yes we do a tree! When I was a kid this was my favorite thing to do and I think I passed that spirit on to my kids. We love getting out ornaments. I've worked at Hallmark so we have a lot of those and then the ones the kids made each year and other ones people gave us. We make a night of it. So fun! :)
T Rex Mom
Friday 5th of November 2010
Homework update - done for the night so a little fun reading to end my evening. Thanks for posting!We do a tree every year. Many of us have winter birthdays so we try to put it up after those but sometimes we have to do it sooner. And all our ornaments have a story. However, rarely do we purchase new ones because we often get a special one as a gift and the tree is just getting too full. For the past couple years we've been putting the tree up on a table to keep the little one from plucking off ornaments. This year we'll do the same but I know he'll be much more into decorating. In fact, I'm giddy just thinking of it!And we all get stockings around here - ALWAYS!And I've always wanted to visit Chincoteague, VA - after reading the book Misty of Chincoteague. Love it! Did you get to see any of the horses?