twelve (plus) days of traditions: themed family ornaments

I admit it . . . I'm feeling a bit sad today that twelve (plus) days of traditions is over.  :(  I so enjoyed the sneak peak inside the homes and families of each on the bloggers who shared.  And I have an entire list of new traditions to start this year!  I am still going to be highlighting a few of our traditions as well as a few of the traditions that were linked up over the past three weeks. 

And if you have a tradition that you are interested in sharing, feel free to e-mail it to me.  I would love to post a few of those every now and then up until Christmas Day.

So without further ado, here's Tiffany - busy mom and blogger - from Making the World Cuter . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hello 12 Crafts fans! I love Elizabeth's blog and all of her ideas, I want to be just like her when I grow up...If I ever do such a thing! My name is Tiffany, my friends call me Tiff...among other things, so feel free to do the same. I blog over at a little place called Making the World Cuter.

I L.O.V.E Christmas and all the traditions that go along with it! I was always the first one up on Christmas morning waking up my siblings first and then my parents to get a move on so that we could see what Santa brought. That hasn't changed...I have to wake my kids up and bring them down all groggy with sleep still in their eyes because I just can't sleep on Christmas Eve. It makes my hubby a little crazy, but I'm sure it's one of the things he loves about me (wink!).

My tradition is one we kind of started by accident, but has been so much fun! 

See in my Pottery Barn dreams, my Christmas tree is gorgeous-all matchy matchy with a theme and people gasp in pleasant surprise when they see it in my front window.

In real life, we usually end up cutting down a Charlie Brown tree that my daughter insists upon and the ornaments are not in any way related-and they are usually dispersed along the bottom 3 feet of the tree where the kids can reach. 

On my daughter's first Christmas (she is 6 now) my husband brought home a little snowman ornament for me to paint because he knew I would like that. So I painted it, wrote her name and the year on it and hung it on the tree. The next year we bought another ornament that just happened to be a snowman again and did the same thing.

The next year we figured out this would be a fun tradition since we now added a boy to the house-we decided to start buying him Santa Clause ornaments, and the tradition began! 

My 6 year old's snowman ornaments...

 

We buy an ornament for each of our children now in the theme we selected for them the year they were born and on Christmas Eve, they open the ornament with their new pj's and put it on the tree. 

My 4 year old's Santa ornaments....

We decided that when they left home that we would let them take their ornaments with them, and they would have everything for their own theme tree.

My 2 year old's Reindeer ornaments

I will be getting my new little guy a train ornament for his first Christmas, for my step son we get him a nutcracker, and my step daughter, we get her snow themed items-such as snowflakes, ice skates and sleds. 

We realized that the kids liked this tradition so much that my husband and I started our own. We each buy...or make...one another an ornament that represented that year to us. It has been in the past the only gift we get for each other when money has been tight, and we so look forward to see what the other comes up with. Here are a few that we have collected. 

Even after my Pottery Barn dreams come true and my Christmas tree is truly something to behold, we will still have a little Charlie Brown tree somewhere in the house with these special memories on it, and we will continue to add to it each year.

Thanks Elizabeth for letting me share our family tradition and for all the other great ideas! 

And a great big thanks to you Tiffany!  Another fabulous ornament tradition.  I love the idea of themed ornaments. 

Tradition on!

If reading through subscription, click over here to add your own tradition post.