<p>The first Christmas H and I spent together was in MA and my parents came to stay. We had no ornaments but one of our pre-Christmas outings was to Longfellow’s house which had been decorated for the season. My mother and I were very taken with the gold walnuts hung on the tree with red ribbons so we decided to make some ourselves. What I find hard to believe now is that H and my father cracked the walnuts, extracted the meat and then glued the shells back together before my mother and I sprayed them gold and then tied the ribbons. VERY fiddly. I guess we were too frugal to waste something edible but if I were doing it today, I would spray the nuts without bothering to crack them first. Makes me think of my parents, now both gone, every year when I hang those faded but still beautiful walnuts on the tree.</p>
<p>My family had walnuts too, sprayed silver. I have one from then, 50+ years old, and made some new ones with my kids, sprayed gold and silver. Yes, we opened them up and glued them back together with the ribbon ends inside.</p>
<p>My favorite Christmas decoration is a blow molded snowman that I got for $3 at a garage sale. He sits on the deck looking into the house and I always smile when I see him. Heck, he sits in the garage the rest of the year and I smile when I see him anytime.</p>
<p>Ohh. GREAT thread. I have too many that make me smile. The matching ones with pictures of the kids. The one that H and I bought for our special “first” Christmas Tree. The one that was my Dad’s favorite. The “depression ornaments”, just crumpled peices of colored aluminum, from my mom’s childhood. The one from my college roommates, the first year H and I were married (and still in school), that has a hysterical spelling error on it.</p>
<p>But one of my favorites, is the one I bought for D when she was about 3. We were in CVS and she just BEGGED me to get this one ornament for her. She just HAD to have it. So I got it for her, and she just beamed, for days. It cost a quarter. :)</p>
<p>Way too many to count. Almost all of them. We have ornaments that have the kids pictures on them from when they were younger…sniff. I have ornaments that I made when I was very young, and some that I made, together with my mom when I was very young. I have a drummer girl (I was a drummer) from Colonial Williamsburg where I went with my parents as a teenager…and ornaments that the kids have given me through the years, each of them that say something about me or our family. There are hardly any of our ornaments that are JUST ornaments. They’re almost all “special”.</p>
<p>Favorite ornaments:</p>
<p>-anything that the kids made
-a small wooden ornament that a clerk in a local store gave my then almost 3 year old son (I think she was pleased with his calm, appreciative demeanor in her highly decorated shop)
-souvenirs of travels
-gifts from friends and family over the years
-an ornament that was mine as a child
-an ornament that reminds me of my mother
-hobby ornaments that form collections for each of my kids (music, travel and equestrian)</p>
<p>Well, that’s pretty much the whole tree. Thanks for this thread. It’s fun to read what others enjoy.</p>
<p>Happy holidays! I think the tree has become more important as I have scaled back on a lot of other holiday decorating.</p>
<p>My mother-in-law was teaching in Germany when our son was born. For his first Christmas she sent a Nürnberg angel for the top of “his” tree. We’ve used it for over twenty years and the wax face and hands still look perfect, although the gilded wings show a little wear and tear. In fact, I was talking to my son right after my husband and I had put up the tree this year and I mentioned that there was a bit of gilding on the ceiling after my husband put the angel in the top of our (very tall) tree. The angel isn’t something I would have ever chosen and I’m sure that it doesn’t appeal aesthetically to my son, but it has always been “his”-it says so on the box it came in, in his grandmother’s writing, and I’d say it’s been sanctified by sentiment. One of these years soon, I’ll be boxing it up after Christmas and sending it home with him and something will end and something will continue.</p>
<p>Appaloosa, I experienced this recently with my Mom. She went to a more “commercialized” tree and sent each of us kids home with “our” ornaments. It was a sad day. But next Christmas, as MY children took the ornaments out of the box, I got to share my childhood Christmas memories with them - and THAT was a happy day. :)</p>
<p>I have my own travel tree of all our vacation ornaments, some of them a bit strange like an out house since we camp most places we go. One if my most treasured besides my kids’ home-made ones is a Chinese lantern from my first visit to our art museum that I bought for my mom. It is a mess but it isn’t Christmas til it is hung.</p>
<p>LOL - murmur, when you said “travel tree”, I thought of something different. The first Christmas after my divorce was final my parents left town on vacation with my other siblings who are much younger. This left me and my small children without our extended family on Christmas. I was incredibly depressed about that. I packed up our Christmas tree (a ten dollar PRESTO-PINE) and all the ornaments and traveled with my friend, who I later married to the city where his mom lived. The kids and I stayed in a hotel room, where I put up our tree, and he stayed with his mom. We all visited together and had a great time and a Merry Christmas. It was a magical start. What could have been an awfully sad Christmas experience turned into an exciting family adventure full of love.</p>
<p>I have so many! H and I alternate ornaments by year since we met so late in life we each had a whole set. Mine include a cardboard and glitter stocking from my parents’ first tree, the ones my mother gave to me as I was growing up (whatever I was into at the time), handmade ones from my kids (including the gold spray painted macaroni), and some that my grandmother gave me when she downsized-pretty teardrop aqua glass. All of my ornaments have a story. There is no decorator theme and so help me, there never will be. </p>
<p>If I had to pick a favorite, it would be the little baby African American angel my mother gave me the year she died. I had not yet met my H, had not yet had our daughter. But somehow, I ended up with a little girl angel that looks just like the granddaughter my mother never met. To this day it amazes me. So every year I let D hang “herself” on the tree, and we remember my mom.</p>
<p>H has some lovely matching sets from various stores’ Christmas departments. They are nice red, green and gold. None of them have any special meaning, except one. When he was 6, his father came home in between his two jobs and took a look at the Christmas tree the kids had spent all afternoon decorating. He saw a crooked ornament and reached to fix it, but the entire tree fell over, smashing almost every ornament. Only a handful were saved.That was his last Christmas-he died soon after. H has one of those saved ornaments. It’s pink, and doesn’t begin to match the rest of his collection. But it’s his favorite one.</p>
<p>About five years ago, under the Christmas tree was a beautiful box, like a jewelery store box, wrapped in silver paper, with a very large multi-shade blue gauze bow, and a angel gift tag. The tag said " To lololu, my favorite. From Fred" FRED??? I didn’t recognize the handwriting. I don’t know any body named Fred. I opened the box and inside was a beautiful green and blue angel fish ornament. I had no idea where it had come from or why it was for me. I was completely baffled. It wasn’t until almost dinner time that my husband admitted that it came from him. He had the store clerk sign it Fred cause he thought it was a funny thing to do. I love that ornament.</p>
<p>As I mentioned earlier, each year I buy each child an ornament, most of the time related to something that went on in their life that year. Now that they are older and one out of the house, I have told them that it would be great if THEY would get me one ornament a year so that when they take theirs I still have ornaments (and memories) to put on my tree!!!</p>
<p>So, they usually buy one for me each year now, and I still get them one. :)</p>
<p>I have an ornament -a picture in a wreath frame.</p>
<p>The man I had just started dating brought me and my two year old to a holiday show; the picture and ornament frame were part of the event. He wanted me to take the picture with my son, and I insisted he be in the picture as well.</p>
<p>We are about to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary.</p>
<p>Sad sweet moment at our house yesterday. Son bought a house this year and came by to pick up “his” ornaments. Lucky for me there’s a pet in the equation and they are just putting unbreakable ornaments on the tree this year so I didn’t have to part with all of them at once.
I didn’t think I would get misty-eyed at turning over pipe-cleaner candy canes or little apples with his preschool teacher’s name on them. Don’t even get me started on the elaborate ones from back when I had time for needle craft. </p>
<p>“My” ornament is a large painted glass one. My dad used a dime to scratch the year (my birth year) on the bottom. I’ve seen pictures of that tree - a straggly Texas cedar in a college apartment. The new ornament was the fanciest thing on it. My mother gave it to DH and I very early in our marriage. I took it as a vote of trust.</p>
<p>^^^^ That’s why I vote that Mom gets to keep a couple of “their” ornaments!</p>
<p>Yes, tell young parents to get one new ornament per year per kid <em>plus</em> one for the parents!</p>
<p>I have so many favorites and each one has a special memory. This year was bittersweet, because many of the ornaments were handmade by my mom, who passed away just before Christmas last year. I have a hand-cut wooden star that my husband made for me, the first year we dated and it is always at the top. I also have a small stuffed monkey which climbs the tree every year as well as many glass birds and even two glass skunks. I have ornaments that were my grandmother’s. My husband and daughter made a homemade manger out of a Clementine box with popsicles sticks for a roof and it is sprayed gold and black camouflage and is completed with dollar store figurines. It is quite beautiful in a very ugly kind of way, but they made it together and it is special to them. There is always a favorite for someone. I also save every photo Christmas card I get in a special metal Christmas box.</p>
<p>Being Jewish I can’t really identify, but a friend posted on FBK photos of her late dads life preserver ornaments, and given that her mom’s house up od the jersey shore was just devastated by Hurricane Sandy, these ornaments took on special meaning. Made me really happy and sad at the same time.</p>
<p>The little flimsy wooden sled with painted metal red runners.
I gave it to my DH many years ago…because he loves Citizen Kane.
I used a red marker to write ‘Rosebud’ on it.</p>
<p>I love this thread!
I really love the construction paper ornaments my kids made in nursery school with glitter and glue and pipe cleaners.
Another ornament I love is one that I give to the family who wins the Christmas trivia contest at my not-really annual Christmas Eve Eve party. It is gold, gaudy, and tacky beyond belief. And it has never been on our own tree - just travels from tree to tree from year to year!
It doesn’t make me smile - it makes me laugh out loud!</p>