Monday, November 26, 2007

Christmas Traditions

I have been reading my friend’s blogs about the huge thanksgiving meals they lovingly prepared for their family and guests. That is so special. But, me? I am SOOO thankful that I am three generations down on the thanksgiving pecking order in my family. Meaning, my Grandma still cooks, my mom and aunts still help. I show up, bring the grandchild, and complain about the eight hours of football watching. That’s my job. I didn’t even make a pie this year. Priceless.

On another note, we got our Christmas decorations up. We started a Christmas tradition when we got married. We started collecting ornaments and things for the tree that mark important events or tell a story. For example, our star on the top of our tree we got on our honeymoon. We also have a cheesy statue of liberty bulb that I bought at the gift shop at the Statue…where Conrad proposed to me! And if you open up the box it’s stored in, the ticket stub from the first movie he ever took me to is in there also.

And from Isabelle’s first Christmas, we started a collection for her. We’ll start keeping them in a separate box and her job each year will be to carefully place her ornaments on the tree (or soundly avoid the whole event as she gets older…whatever the case may be!!) and when she gets older and starts her own family and her own tree, she can take her ornaments with her to start her own tree and traditions!

We turned on Christmas music and slowly assembled our fake evergreen. The bigger it got, the more excited Isabelle started to get. She could hardly contain her excitement as the lights when on and she ran from room to room saying “Ohhhhhhuuuuu.” As we put the bulbs on the tree we told her each and every story that went with each and every ornament, even though she was WAY more interested in swiping shinny gold globes and hiding them behind furniture. Every morning she runs from the bedroom to see if the tree is still there. Baring any more teething, I think this will be the best Christmas yet!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Eric and I kind of have the same thing. We started collecting ornaments from our very first Christmas together before we were even married. Each one has the year on it so we know when we got it and I just got a new one when we went away a couple of weekends ago at the lodge we were at. We will start getting the baby ornaments starting next year. I Like looking at the ornaments and remembering. It is fun. HOwever, we have not even begun to deal with Christmas decorations yet. You are way ahead on that. Thanksgiving was great and we loved spending time with Isabelle. Next year there will be a new baby girl yeah!

JaydensJourney said...

Great tradition! Jayden was enamored with the faux tree as soon as the pole went up...TREEEEE. I've been a little slower in getting up the lights (hopefully tonight) but as soon as all the branches were up, he decorated and add two cars. I'll post pictures soon. Christmas is so much fun with kids!

Wendy said...

Christmas traditions are the best ones, in my opinion. We started a new one last year. We get a Christmas ornament from WalMart with a pic of all the kids on it. They are really nice. However, they're glass and I'm sooo scared that something will happen to them over the years.

Anonymous said...

We, too, have out Christmas traditions - One of them we started when we moved to Minnesota and that is taking the kids to Minneapolis for the Hollidazzle Parade. It is typically cold when we go, but always fun! We also buy annual Christmas ornaments -- this has been going on sicne 1996 when James and I got married.
Luke loves the lights this year and Christmas is more fun each year as Carlie gets a bit older -- although I know the enthusiasm will hit its peak in a few years!

Emily Jade said...

I have the ornaments that my grandmother started buying for me when I was a baby, and they grace my tree to this day. What a wonderful tradition to pass along. I can't explain the feelings that I get carefully hanging MY ornaments on the tree to this day...

Our tree will go up on December 1st (we get a live one) - I'll be posting about our Christmas traditions soon, I promise...

BTW, in case you didn't see my reply to your dinnerware comment - I only have service for 8 too. Everyone else ate off of the stoneware we use everday. The extra silverware came from my neighbor!! I only took pictures of the china settings...sneaky of me - eh!?!