December 3, 2009 Christmas Tree Ornaments

Day 3 of the Genea Bloggers Advent Calender asks this:

Did your family have heirloom or cherished ornaments? Did you ever string popcorn and cranberries? Did your family or ancestors make Christmas ornaments?

This is a great post for today. Our tree is up and we are decorating it tonight. To my knowledge, my family does not have any heirloom ornaments. But, I do have many cherished ornaments. My Mom passed down many Angel ornaments that she had painted back in the 80’s when we did ceramics. I love these little Angels.

I also have many ornaments that I purchased from Christmas Around the World, before they went out of business.

There are many beautiful hearts, some decoupage, more angels…I love Christmas decorations!

When I was a child, I believe there was a year or two that we strong popcorn. We normally used garland around the tree. Those crazy colors wrapped around the tree. Now, I prefer wooden garland. We have mittens, candy and many other ones. Then we top off a few special branches with burgundy bows.

When I started having children, I decided that I would buy them an ornament every year so that when they were grown they would be ready to put up a tree. We have many special Barbie ornaments, and each child has a special Precious Moment ornament from the year they were born.

When my kids were younger, there were a few years that we made ornaments for the adults in their lives. Do you remember the clothes pin reindeer’s or the dogs made of ornament balls? Each of those hang on our tree.

I have an Aunt who recently passed away who would make sand dollar ornaments for the family members that celebrated Christmas together. Each year, she would mark it with the year and wrap them up with some cookies. This will be the first Christmas without her and I am sure these heartfelt gifts will be truly missed.