Happy Friday everyone! Less than a week till Christmas! I can hardly wait! I have so much excitement for Christmas this year! I was just telling Ryan the other day how prepared I feel too. There is no last minute shopping to be done, food that I am responsible for is prepared and wrapping is 99% done! I feel like all I have to do is sit back and enjoy! It’s a very nice feeling!
One of my most favourite things about Christmas is decorating! I love how warm and festive the house feels draped in tinsel and garland! I’ve blogged before (here and here) about our memory Christmas tree. It’s not a fancy tree with perfectly color co-ordinated balls but one that is so full of special memories for us! It’s where we put our trip souvenir ornaments and ones given to us.
This year is no different and I want to take the opportunity today to talk about the new ones that we were blessed to hang this year.
The idea for the “memory” tree was kind of stolen from my parents. We only had one Christmas tree growing up and all of our ornaments we made at school would be proudly hung on it year after year. My parents still use the same tree and pretty much the same ornaments. When Ryan joined the family, Mom got him a couple of his own ornaments to have on their tree. This year, we packaged up a few that she thought we might like to keep.
First, Ryan’s Santa on a snowmobile. Anyways who knows my husband, knows that he loves anything with a motor ESPECIALLY his sled!
Here is another one with Santa riding a four wheeler!
One ornament that was always “mine” to hang was this one my mom made with my 1 year old picture in it! For 25 years it has been my job to hang this ornament and this year I got to hang it on my own tree.
Here is one of my first school ornaments that I made. It was from grade 1!
Last year at a post Christmas pot luck, I participated in a gift exchange! In my present was this beautiful Christmas ornament made out of stain glass!
Last Christmas I also received a beautiful glass tree ornament from my Mother-in-law Bev! Every year she has always gotten me an ornament at Christmas time and I love hanging it up on our tree the next year!
This next ornament was given to us by my parents last Christmas! It was exciting to put up another wedding ornament!
I also got this amazing little token of our wedding from friends Evan and Josee (and Landyn too of course!). Inside the little glass ball is our wedding invitation cut up and curled! Love it!
Our winter vacation was one that we had planned for a long time! Since Ryan and I were dating, we knew we wanted to go to Disney in Florida sometime! We saved for years and dreamed of a day where we could go! I wanted Ryan to experience Disney before we had children of our own! Honestly, we had a BLAST on this trip! One of the best yet! At every theme park we were at, we would look in the souvenir shops for a perfect Christmas ornament. I had an idea in my head what I wanted to get but could never find it. Finally, on one of our last days, I found it! At first, we almost didn’t buy it because it was $50! I have never spent so much on such a small souvenir. But, our Christmas ornament for our memory tree was the only souvenir we wanted! I am SO glad we ended up buying it because it has easily become one of my favourites!
We had a great time placing it on the tree too and remembering all of the fun we had while at Disney! We talked about our favourite rides, the fireworks and beautiful weather! Disney recap here and here.
We had a great time placing it on the tree too and remembering all of the fun we had while at Disney! We talked about our favourite rides, the fireworks and beautiful weather! Disney recap here and here!
Another amazing trip we went on in 2013 was out east to Nova Scotia. My mom was born in Nova Scotia and we still have a lot of family that reside out there. I knew I wanted to return one day to visit with family and it worked out perfectly that we could surprise Mom on her birthday (and anniversary!). I love the east coast, it feels like home away from home to me. I was glad to be able to show it off to Ryan! We had a great time touring around in our rental car before meeting up with family.
As amazing as the trip was, it was also a great opportunity to talk baby! Just days prior to leaving for our trip we found out we were pregnant. We knew we wanted to keep it a secret so it was nice to have all the alone time to talk all things baby! Things got a little harder to hide from my parents when we met up with them but we were successful!
It was in Digby that we took our announcement picture that we would later share with family and friends!
I was not sure how easy it would be to find a Christmas ornament in August but when we were checking out of our cottage after our first night (OMG I was SO sick that night! First day of “morning” sickness!) Ryan spotted this ornament in their souvenir section! It was the only one there! So, we snatched it up! It was a good thing too because we never saw another Christmas ornament our whole trip!
Now, I know I “should” have included this ornament when I was talking about our trip to Disney because we got it in Epcot when we were in “Germany”.
We were walking around the store in “Germany” and found this ornament. After reading the description of the tradition of the “Christmas Pickle” Ryan and I decided to buy the ornament and start it with our own family to represent Ryan’s German heritage.
The tradition says, a decoration in the shape of a pickle is hidden on a Christmas tree (usually on Christmas Eve after children are in bed). On Christmas morning, the first child to find the pickle on the tree would receive an extra present from St.Nick or a year of good fortune.
Of course we would won’t be starting this tradition yet but it was still fun to hang our pickle with thoughts of the Christmas’ to come!
Some very special ornaments to add to our tree this year! It takes us a long time to hang all of our ornaments because we always end up talking about the stories associated with the ornament! Our ornaments don’t match, they probably even clash and we even have a pickle hanging from our tree, but I love this tree of memories! It’s a tree where every ornament has a story to tell. A story of mine and Ryan’s life.
Our 2013 tree!
Happy Friday!
xo
Awww I love all of those ornaments. Such a great idea to get them on your trips. If Alex and I ever go anywhere I think I might start this! Haha. Oh, I remember how sick you were on that trip. I'm so glad that you're feeling better!
ReplyDeleteWe have a memory tree too! It's so much more meaningful than a perfectly matching tree. Every year my mom would give us an ornament that had something to do with that year for us. So I have kept on doing that and try to buy one ornament every year that has something to do with what we have done that year.
ReplyDeleteLoved this post and seeing your ornaments. I have a lot of gorgeous ones we bought at Christmas markets in Germany. My favourites are handblown glass icicles.
ReplyDelete