As a child, Christmas was my favorite holiday. It was always filled with family, friends, tinsel, gifts, and laughter. Traditions changed throughout the years, as all five of us kids grew up. However, my favorite tradition was always decorating the Christmas tree. Decorating the Christmas tree each year was a trip down memory lane; every ornament hung had a story attached to it.
The first Christmas after I was married, my husband and I discussed our favorite Christmas traditions in an effort to join our favorites into our new home. My husband was intent on celebrating from the day after Thanksgiving through Epiphany (in early January). I asked that we only decorate our tree with ornaments that meant something. I wanted every one of our ornaments to have a story that we could tell our kids as they grew up. Each year since then, we have added at least one ornament that represented the events of the year.
The first few years, our tree was filled with memories of vacations, new homes, and a few that had been passed on to us by our families. Once we had our boys, we added two “First Christmas” ornaments to the tree for each of them. We wanted to have an ornament that we would pass on to them when they had their own families. Recently, we’ve added mostly geeky ornaments, each with their own meaning and each representing the obsession of the year.
Being an avid Whovian, this year we eagerly anticipated the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. We also added the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Glass Ornament and will be adding another new home ornament to celebrate having moved again this year.
After attending a local sci-fi convention, we added a small Firefly Jayne’s hat ornament that we had found at Quirky Crochet.
My husband’s avid electronics hobby inspired our set of recycled circuit board ornaments.
The memory of my late grandfather and grandmother have always lived at the top of our tree: Armed Forces for him and Nutcrackers for her.
We have a tiny porcelain angel on our tree to remember the miscarriage that we had before either of our boys. We wanted to honor that memory with a happy tradition rather than with something that made us sad each time we saw it.
The year we introduced our favorite Christmas movies to our kids, we added a leg lamp ornament from A Christmas Story and an ornament featuring the Griswold family tree from Christmas Vacation. Also, we always place a bell somewhere in the tree for It’s a Wonderful Life.
When my boys fell in love with Lego bricks, we added a set of three Lego Christmas Santa ornaments
When I sit in my living room with a beautiful fire burning and our family stockings hung above the mantle with care, I look at my gorgeous tree and don’t just see pretty little baubles. I see a tree built of memories. Peace, joy, and happy holidays to all.
Same here! I’ve always been bewildered by trees where the ornaments actually match. They may be “prettier,” but so generic! My parents started each of us kids on our own ornament collections from our first Christmases onward, too, which I DID then bring to my own family. Decorating the tree instantly becomes family story time now, like a 3D scrapbook– I find myself telling stories about every ornament to my kids as we decorate. I have ornaments that I fondly remember getting in preschool, which is great to tell my preschooler about now! And now they’re collecting ornaments with stories attached, too. It’s funny, I don’t think I appreciated it as much before as I have this year, so this post is timely!