<p>Unpacking the ornaments and decorating the tree is like opening up a scrapbook - memories of so many years and moments!</p>
<p>Do you have an ornament that makes you smile fondly or laugh out loud each year when you unpack it??</p>
<p>I have a felt gingerbread ornament that was given to me in college when I was student teaching by one of my preschool students - my kids can tell you the story of “Casey” my fav preschool student without missing a hitch!</p>
<p>My two D’s have always joked that my middle, a son, is my favorite. A couple of years ago I found an ornament etched with “Mom’s Favorite!” on it that always brings a laugh.</p>
<p>The Rudolph ceramic ornament - 20 years ago it play “Rudolph The Red Nosed Raindeer” when you pushed a button. Today you can only faintly hear some errie noise when you push the button, yet it goes on the tree each year.</p>
<p>The list goes on and on - any special ornaments that crack a smile on anyone’s face at your house???</p>
<p>Definitely. Stocking shapes with kids school pictures from 15 years ago. This year I put them next to each other. But my ultimate favorite is one of the boxes. When DD was about five she wanted to pack up “her” ornaments. Sharpied the outside of the box “xxx’s OrNmets” I kept the box and it always makes me smile.</p>
<p>All of ours are either hand-made or were given to us for a special occasion. </p>
<p>One unusual one is our SEC Championship sidelines pass that we got when we attended that game and saw our son in the Million Dollar Band (Alabama)…we got the pass when we tried to get onto the field after the game to pick him up before he got on the band buses. We almost got hauled off by security, but finally someone believed us and gave us the pass. And it’s red and green.</p>
<p>We also have some pretty strange ones---- including a big, gaudy, fringe-draped cross and a lobster—that were given to us by a friend who loves to come to HER friends’ houses during the holidays and secretly leave a crazy ornament on their tree.</p>
<p>Oh, and a dear friend’s daughter JUST got married and they put up their first tree. They have no ornaments, so they got a string of white lights, some pinecones from a neighbor’s yard, some flags (little pennant banners) that were waved at their wedding as they departed the reception, and her garter for the “angel” at the top. Priceless.</p>
<p>Not a tree ornament, but we have a really old Frosty the Snowman figure that used to swing a little string of lights and shake his rear and sing. He looks a bit Frankensteinish because we have had to cut him open for repairs, and now he just sort of jiggles instead of dances. He still sings though! But we love him and I can’t see tossing him. Most of the kid’s ornaments have give up the ghost.</p>
<p>I have a “baby’s first” ornament for each of my kids. They are all unique and special and light my heart every year. Also the few remaining ornaments that we bought on our honeymoon.</p>
<p>Thirty years ago, at my fun job, my friend & I were assigned the task of making employee IDs and sealing them in our new laminate machine. We were having so much fun doing this that we decided to laminate everything in sight. I pulled out a piece of Wrigley spearamint gum from my desk and, with the Wrigley wrapper still on it, I laminated that.</p>
<p>The gum melted everywhere, the mint smell permeated the air, and we spent the next few hours trying to clean out the laminate machine before the boss found out. I saved the laminated, wrapped gum and made an ornament out of it by putting a hook through the place where the ID tag clip would normally go.</p>
<p>I smile every year when I take it out and hang it prominently.</p>
<p>This is what I collect so I have a number of really special ones that I love. I have some radkos which are prob valuable and very nice but the ones I cherish the most are because of how I found them or how different and fun they are - a blown glass Madeline, cow eating grass, frog - ones with indents, I just love those hand-painted blown glass from poland. When we were young, our family tradition was to go to this “barn” where they would have baskets of all kinds of ornaments - wish there was something like that around now. Those christmas ornament pop-up stores at malls aren’t the same.</p>
<p>There are several ornaments that I love, but two have very special meaning to me. One is a beautiful hand painted carousel horse that I bought for my mother the Christmas before she died. She was hospitalized over the holidays and never came home, so she never got to see it, but it has a special place on our tree each year. Another favorite ornament is 1 of a set of Boxer ornaments we bought the year we were married and got our first dog. It was a set of 6, but over the past 29 years, 5 have been broken and this is the last survivor.</p>
<p>A Hamburger ornament–it’s a satin sewn hamburger that looks a bit like a Big Mac. I bought it 30+ years ago just 'cause I liked it and got so much grief for it that I laugh every year when I hang it on the tree. I still like it and still get grief for it.</p>
<p>A small Nativity scene made by D2 in nursery school in 1991. The stable is 3 tongue depressors hot-glued together in a triangle with a star at the top. The 3 figures are peanuts with pieces of felt for Mary’s veil and for the manger. It would not be Christmas without it.</p>
<p>I sent my daughter several ornaments from her childhood when she was living in Boston for eight years to help make her apartment feel like home. My favorite was a wooden gingerbread man that we bought together in Solvang when she was two. When she moved back out to our area, she forgot the ornaments and left them in the basement of the apartment.
When she told me, I was sad for about a couple of minutes, and then realized that I have her here now, so it was a good exchange.</p>
<p>I have several favorites, so it’s hard to pick just one. I love the Little Red Riding Hood ornament that I bought for D2 to commemorate her 1st professional theatre role when she was a child. I’m also fond of the set of nutcracker ornaments I got the 1st year the same D performed in “The Nutcracker” with Cincinnati Ballet. I love the piano ornaments given to me by some of my favorite private students. But if I have to pick just one favorite it is the black cat with a halo and angel wings that I bought after my precious cat Sheba died at age 20. I had looked for a black cat ornament unsuccessfully for many years. I now have three. Two of them are just “normal” cats. The angel cat always makes me tear up.</p>
<p>We still use the angel D make in first grade as the tree topper. Each year she’s a bit more battered – with love and memories. Another favorite ornament dates from my childhood: a wonderful gingerbread house that’s about the size of a 4-inch-square box. There’s always a gap between branches that it fills just perfectly!</p>
<p>We have one ornament they makes me smile , but also makes me sad at the same time. It was given to D by her first preschool teacher. That lovely teacher died in an accident shortly after that. I remember her more clearly than D, and every year when we hang that ornament I think of what a wonderful person she was.</p>
<p>When I was a kid, we had an ornament that was hard to describe, but basically two clear plastic square frames that crossed in the middle. Eacch half of a square had a tiny hook hangiang down from the top of it, and then there was another hook at the bottom where the two frames crossed (whole thing maybe four inches high.) The idea was that you hang five tiny ball ornaments from the five hooks, then the whole thing hung on the tree. For some odd reason, the idea tht it had ornaments hanging on an ornament appealed to me greatly, so that when I was an adult and had a tree, i asked my mom for that one. my mom obliged, seeiing as it was really just a cheap piece of plastic. But it’s known in my house as “Mom’s favorite ornament” because it has ornaments hanging on an ornament. I still can’t explain why that appeals to me so much.</p>
<p>Chalk it up to the weird world of Garland’s mind.</p>
<p>My favorite ornament is from my set of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” The one I love is the drummer drumming. It has a huge hole in his back from when S1 was little and pulled the entire tree down while he was reaching for one of the ornaments.</p>
<p>I love my red and green construction paper ornament laminated with a school picture that my daughter did in second grade. She has nerd glasses, crazy teeth (she was in braces for years and years), crooked bangs and on the edges of the ornament there is glued on gold spray painted macaroni!</p>
And it’s red and green.</p>