My Favorite Ornaments

I’m shamelessly stealing this blog post idea from Sarah at Life with Lance. But I really liked seeing her favorite Christmas ornaments and hearing the stories behind them so I thought I’d copy her.

Jake’s and my tradition is to buy a Christmas ornament from every trip we take together. We’ve really grown to love opening the boxes of decorations and remembering all of our fun trips.

The first time we did that was in June of 2001, just two months after we were married. We went to San Francisco and bought this ornament (pardon the blurry picture, I didn’t realize it was blurry until I uploaded it and am too lazy to take another)

Another sentimental favorite is this one. Although the ornament itself is goofy, it was our first plane trip after September 11, 2001. We went to Chicago in November and bought this guy from some store on the Navy Pier.

Sometime in spring of 2002, when we were living in Connecticut, we took a day trip to Mystic. No, we didn’t eat any pizza (although we saw the place, it was just too crowded. We opted for seafood instead) but we did tour the slave ship Amistad.

Here is one that Jake brought me back from one of his many, many trips to Denmark. It’s a wooden Viking and he has a string that hangs down. When you pull the string his arms and legs both go up. It’s one of the most fun ornaments we have.

Another favorite from Denmark. Jake found this collection of ornaments, which I can only imagine are like our Hallmark ornaments because every year there seemed to be a new ornament in the series and they are all gorgeous. I don’t think this was the first, but it’s my favorite of that group. (Another blurry one, sorry)

This ornament we bought in Boston when we went for our first anniversary. As a kid, my parents had a similar pewter ornament from when we lived in Boston. Just by coincidence I found the same maker? designer? craftsman? when we were there in 2002 so I bought one for myself. I always loved my mom’s and I love this one just as much.

Thanksgiving of 2002, we blew off turkey and jetted across the pond for a quick trip to London. Stupidly we ended up at Harrod’s on a Saturday, which made me want to put a bullet in my brain. To commemorate the fact that I lived through the experience, I bought this little guy.

This one, I made Sarah, Lorna and R accompany me in search of one very muggy morning near the end of our trip to Hilton Head Island in 2006. I had searched everywhere we went on the island for an ornament only to find a whole damn Christmas shop in the little shopping center where we went every morning for baked goods. What can I say? I was pregnant and airheaded.

And last but certainly not least, is the ornament I bought this year for Bridget. Jake and I both have ornaments with our names engraved on them that we had as kids and I wanted Bridget to have one too. I had planned to get this for her last year, but if you live in Texas you know that you DO NOT venture into James Avery past Thanksgiving Day, and if you want engraving done before Christmas, you better be prepared to give someone a blow job. Just kidding. They are good Christians there. They don’t know what blow jobs are. Did I just mention blow jobs and my daughter’s first Christmas ornament? Top 10 Mom, right here.

So now tell me about your favorite ornaments. Or think of this a photo meme and post a blog entry of your own. C’mon. It’ll make you feel Christmasy.

Filed under Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland |