Family Christmas Ornaments

The first Christmas after I moved into my own apartment I realized that besides one or two metal engraved ornaments, I didn’t have anything of my own to put on the tree. It turned out to be the beginning of my love of all things crafty as my roommate and I worked to fill our tree with ornaments we made with our own two hands. Lots of sea glass, grape vines and seashells. It was the one and only time that my tree had a theme.

As pretty as that tree turned out, I didn’t want our kids to face their first Christmas tree without a box full of ornaments.Thus the annual ornament swap. Every year on the day after Thanksgiving we draw names. Then we have a little over a month to craft a unique ornament especially for that person. Usually the ornaments have something to do with their current interests and sometimes they’re just holiday pretties.

Each of our four kids now has a box of ornaments of their very own. Even if it does create an escalating issue with available real estate on the Christmas tree, it’s one of their favorite things about Christmas.

These are from Jeff to each of the kids.



Here are the ones that Kenzi received when she was in her Spongebob phase, which apparently lasted about 3 years.



Music has been an ever widening theme.



And these two make me grin every time I see them.




(Joey made this one for Jeff when she was 3.)

We have ornaments to commemorate trips to the emergency room and nicknames, hobbies and spiritual ideas. Mostly what I love about these is how ridiculously unique they all are, just like my family.