Getting really excited for Christmas here. How about you? This weekend we decorated the house and today we went to see Santa. Funny how Santa and just being in the mall…hearing the Christmas music, seeing the decorations and the gift ideas galore really put me in the holiday mood. And lunch at Olga’s never hurts for lifting the spirits either.
I also love pulling the holiday bins out of storage each year…and uncovering the treasures inside. It’s like getting reacquainted with old friends…holiday decorations that have been a part of my history for years, and seeing new friends, things that I picked up in recent years to add to my holiday collection.
This tin…
…holds some of my favorite treasures and bits of one of my favorite holiday traditions—one my Mom started for my brother, sister and I when we were young. (And one that I now do with my kids.) Each year, from the year we were born, my Mom bought each of us a Christmas ornament. We would put the ornaments on the tree…so our kid’s ornaments were for the whole family to enjoy. But, we knew that when we moved out, we already had some holiday ornaments (and a bit of home and the holidays past) to take with us. I loved that as a kid…and my kids love picking out a new ornament for their collection each year.
Some of my very first ornaments are in this tin…
The little felt elephants are from my very first Christmas, circa 1968. These sweet little guys used to have trunks that held little felt flowers, until my first dog Shelby “attacked” my first grownup Christmas tree. (Thus explaining why the elephants now live in the tin and don’t make it up on the tree each year.)
The kangaroo and the partridge, who escaped the wrath of Shelby, are from my second and third Christmases. And I just love this handwritten inventory list…
…my handwriting from about 1980. How fun to see how I used to write and evidence that, even then, I loved lists and organizing. (Note to self and any other interested scrapbooker: even YOU will enjoy your handwriting in your scrapbooks in the years to come! Like everything else, your handwriting will change and you’ll love seeing the changes as they unfold on your scrapbook pages. My writing is no where near as neat as this sample from my earlier years and it’s so fun to see that.)
So how about you? What are your favorite holiday traditions and what treasures do you love to uncover year after year in your holiday decor boxes? I love cherishing the old traditions, but I also love creating new ones to share with my family. I’d love to hear about your favorite traditions and what makes the holidays special to you and your family.
Holy smokes! As a craft nut, I am over here drooling over those ornaments. What a *treasure*! very cool.
For me, the decoration/tradition I love uncovering each year is the advent calendar my mom made ages ago and we used as kids. Nothing fancy AT ALL, just a fabric strip with ribbons on which we’d tie candy canes. I just remember, so vividly, getting so excited when it was my turn to get the candy cane that day. My sister and I took turns each day, and for some reason that was one of my favorite things.
So happy to start new traditions with my kids now!
Is it here ALREADY?! ;o) Like you Aby, most of my ornaments for the tree are all hand made, very few glass bulbs or mass produced ornaments. Mine started when I would babysit my nephews and niece the day after Thanksgiving while my sisters went to craft fairs, bazars, and this quiant collections of shops that specialized in handmade crafts. My sisters would “pay” me with a hand crafted ornament. I do, too, present each of my children a new ornament every year and as we carefully unpack the ornaments, they know exactly whose is who’s. I think decorating the tree is one of my favorite parts of the holiday.
Ann
You can’t NOT put the elephants on the tree!! What IS that? When you are unpacking the ornaments, have on hand a container with: super glue, acrylic paints and brushes, gold pen, and felt, and whatever else you feel you may need.
You could stick some tiny flowers on the trunks of the elephants, and they will be so happy! Anything that looks dingy can get a coat of paint or a little sparkle, you can cover chips with a star or something.
Then, lie on the floor listening to carols and admiring your beautiful tree!
Hi Nan,
The main reason I don’t want to put them up is because I really don’t want another dog incident. These ornaments are just too precious to me. But you got me thinking…maybe I could put them in a shadow box and put them up on proper display each holiday season. I think I would enjoy them even more where I could really see them out in the open…instead of buried on the tree with the others. And then they’d be safe from my latest furry friend (a still quite young lab!)
Thanks for your idea.
Aby
Those little elephants are *adorable.* Thank you for sharing them with us.
After Thanksgiving ends and the snow starts to collect, I begin looking forward to my favorite holiday tradition – watching the Christmas Classics with my family. Frosty the Snowman still brings back the magic of my childhood after all this time, transporting me back to the peace and joy I felt when I watched it with my own parents. It’s a tradition I’ll follow all of my life, and a joy I look forward to sharing with my children.
Just so you know, my favorite Holiday movie and six more are all together on the Christmas Classics DVD box-set this year, a limited keepsake edition. It even comes with a bonus music CD containing 7 classic holiday songs! I only know about it because I work with the company, but you can buy it wherever you do your Christmas shopping. My family and I shall cherish this for many holiday seasons to come.
Ornaments are the most special thing about Christmas to me, too. I actually have a separate tree for all of the handmade ornaments we have. My MIL makes an ornament for each of my kids each year, and those all go on that tree (a real live tree) with all of the ones the kids have made from years of school, scouts, sunday school, etc. Even some that I have made go on the handmade tree. My fake tree in the family room holds all of the hallmark and other purchased ornaments, which I also love, but are way too heavy for a real tree’s branches. My very favorite handmade ornament is a paper plate angel with my daughter’s picture as the face that she made is sunday school when she was about three. SO adorable!
Aak! Nothing… I repeat NOTHING is safe from a young lab! Alert! Alert! You know this, of course, so I won’t carry on. Abandon all decorating plans! Put the gifts on top of the fridge!
Long, long walks can help. If the pup is pooped, she may not have the energy to destroy the house. They are the best dogs in the whole world, though, and I would gladly let them eat all the shoes they want. My lab, years ago, saved my sister’s life. Really really. Best dogs in the world! Good luck saving your decorations!
Aak! Nothing… I repeat NOTHING is safe from a young lab! Alert! Alert! You know this, of course, so I won’t carry on. Abandon all decorating plans! Put the gifts on top of the fridge!
Long, long walks can help. If the pup is pooped, she may not have the energy to destroy the house. They are the best dogs in the whole world, though, and I would gladly let them eat all the shoes they want. My lab, years ago, saved my sister’s life. Really really. Best dogs in the world! Good luck saving your decorations!
Funny story about dogs and holiday decorations – my brother had a bassett hound, they went to work and the dog proceeded to eat everything in site off the tree, including glass bulbs (ouch!)…they came home to a tree with no decorations from the ground until about 2 ft up (thank god he was a short dog!!). He still lived so we’re guessing he had a merry christmas in his belly.
Holiday Hugs!
Stacy
Very cute ornaments you have! BTW, I’m circa 1968, too. lol. I share the tradition of buying my kids a new ornament each year; and we specify one tree exclusively for these along with ornaments from my childhood. But my favorite are the Christmas decorations made by my kids through the years. Unwrapping the pantyhose Rudolph, paper plate angels, tin can Santa claus, etc. and remembering their little fingers so hard at work. The memories are definitely a pre-Christmas gift. (I just wish I had been better at having them sign and date everything.)
I, too, am a holiday nut! A radio station (kost 103.5) is already playing 24-hour Christmas music thru the end of Christmas…the house rule is that NO Christmas music is allowed till AFTER Thanksgiving (and none of that music around my fiance till we’re actually IN the month of December)…but I still listened to the station early, while driving alone in my car. It just makes me happy.
A tradition my dad started and I’d like to continue is the one new ornament per year. We used to pick out one new ornament per person, but I think that might fill up the tree too quickly to do it that way. For THIS year, I will be making ornaments as gifts, and will make an extra one for myself.
A tradition from my mom’s family is that we eat on orange on Christmas morning. This started with her grandmother…they lived in Nebraska, and fresh fruit in the winter was an absolute luxury. So they treasured the fact that they got a fresh orange (though often nothing else) in their stockings. So when I set up home with my fiance, I carried this tradition over to our home (and plan on continuing it when we have kids of our own), to keep in mind the simpler times when people didn’t have much, but were far more able to treasure what they DID have.
My first married Christmas, my mom made for me, a grapevine wreath with hand made ornaments from my childhood. 3 pipe-smoking Frostys, 2 one-eyed Santas, and a purple Angel with green hair.
Needless to say only one of the snowmen has survived. He now proudly adorns my tree each year. The wreath I redecorated with ribbon, bows, and glass bulbs to better stand up to the weather.
… oh and there were lions, trains, doves, and elephants (very similar to yours) somewhere along the way. I don’t know whatever became of them. I’m guessing it had to do with a particular feline.