The Christmas Ornament Post

I don't know about you, but we've been up to our necks in Christmas paraphernalia for the past few weeks. It started when we went Christmas box hunting in the garage right before Thanksgiving. Since the garage had not yet been organized, this was something of a chore. (I used the opportunity to do the organizing, though. It's all good now!) As this is our first year decorating this particular house, we haven't quite found a home for each and every decoration. We're getting there, though.

Now, these pictures were taken a couple years ago when I was putting our ornaments away for the year, but I thought I would share anyway. One of my favorite activities through the year is decking the halls; the family as a whole really enjoys it, to be honest. I love, love, love how Christmas decorations look when they are piled on our table all together. Is that strange? Oh well!

This first picture contains many of our favorites. The swirly blue ball in the lower right-hand corner is something we picked up on our very first trip to Heidelberg. I'm not even sure that it's a Christmas ornament, honestly; we found it in a little glass shop. The patriotic heart right next to that is Sam's favorite. He bought me one at his school one year and was terribly upset when it was broken. The next year we found the exact same ornament and bought it for him as a present.

The Redskins ornament in this next picture is not mine; I just want to make that abundantly clear. Several of the ornaments pictured here are from our favorite little store in Germany, a basket warehouse known as "Frank's". The Christmas selection was a touch lame the last two years we were there, but we still loved to go.

Jason and I do not have an official "First Christmas" ornament, but the Pocahontas ornament below is a great stand-in. We spent our first Christmas apart, but had a tree in his dorm room. (We were in technical training school.) This ornament is one of only four survivors from that first tree. (Do you see the mushroom ornament? That's a Germany find. Isn't it funny?!)

This is one of Jason's favorites. It's a bell and it has the neatest little ring. It makes a sound that is sort of a "Clinkle, clinkle". The red and white behind it is a paper mache Santa that my mother made.

This is one of my favorite ornaments. Jason bought it for me when I was pregnant with Jake. I think we both thought that Jake was going to be a girl--we were obviously quite wrong there! I don't really have a reason for it being a favorite other than the fact that I just like it.

We do not have an overall theme for our tree. My dad's parents used to decorate by color every year. I grew up thinking that I would do the same but that's not how it's happened! We have just picked up ornaments that appeal to us here and there over the years. We have handmade ornaments, kids' character ornaments, wooden, glass, and plastic ornaments. We have a little bit of everything but, as you can probably see from the next picture, it all seems to "go" together. (Well, okay. Maybe Pocahontas sticks out just a little.)

What about your family? Do you have a traditional way of choosing your ornaments or a theme to your decor?

Stay tuned: I'll be posting the winner to the CSN Stores giveaway in a little bit. I'm trying to figure out the random number generator!