O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

One of my favorite traditions, that was started by my mom, is collecting a new ornament each year. Since my very first Christmas, my mom purchased a new ornament for me. Over the years I have collected enough ornaments that I could probably decorate an entire tree with just my own! My mom's goal was that each child would have a good sized collection for when they moved out. 

I love opening the decoration box and seeing the ornaments from my childhood. My mom would let us choose our ornaments each year. They reflect our likes and personality. Beauty and the Beast is my favorite childhood movie, so I have many, many ornaments of Belle. 

One of my favorite ornaments is Kirsten from American Girl dolls. I loved the Kirsten books and own the doll. I remember getting the ornament from Hallmark and being extremely excited to hang it on the tree.  

When Kim and I got married, he didn't have any ornaments. His family never had a Christmas tree. I was determined to buy him ornaments. Or our first tree was going to look pretty girly. The past six years, I have purchased several ornaments for him, mostly comic book related. Any spider-man ornaments are his. And there are several!

I knew that this was a tradition that I wanted to continue with my girls. Each girl has their first Christmas ornament. With Jessie I was able to buy a set of ornaments that created the cutest train. 

With Tali I bought a cute, little bear with the year stamped on it. Of course, I bought this ornament after Christmas last year, because everything is half off! I put it away in my decoration box. And totally forgot about it! 

After thanksgiving I was on the hunt for a Tali's first Christmas ornament. So I bought this cute little picture frame one. Then we I opened the decoration box, it hit me! I had already purchased a first Christmas ornament. Oh well, she has two now! 

Each ornament is special and tells a story: our first home, first Christmas together, an amazing dad, favorite movie character, a special nativity scene. Every year I get to relive memories, tell my own daughters about my childhood, and build new memories of their childhood. It is definitely a tradition I recommend starting. And it's never too late to start.