Remembering Christmas

I keep meaning to chronicle our ornament memories, so this year I'm finally doing it (go me!).
Each year Trent and I pick an ornament to remember the year by ... and now, with my Hallmark obsession (thanks Trish!) it is turning into a yearly "Hallmark Date" around the holidays and it's one of my favorite things to look forward too. So, here are some of our memories and moments from the past 6 years:

This is the ornament for 2004. Trent and I went on our honeymoon to Florida and Disneyworld so of course that was the ornament for the year :)
2005 was also an easy ornament, Baby Shaylie was born to our family :) I found this ornament at Swiss Days in Midway before Shaylie was born.
2006 STILL remains ornament-less :( Every single year I try to find a BYU ornament that I like but no.such.luck. I figure I'll have to just make one eventually or something. But that was the year I graduated from school and Trent struck out on his own as an entrepreneur (kind of hard to find an ornament for all that ;)

2007, another easy year :) Baby Tru joined the family. I was having a really hard time finding an ornament that I liked ... but when I saw this whimsical penguin at the Christmas store at Gardner Village I fell in love. When Trent saw it I'm pretty sure he thought it was the most ridiculous baby boy ornament he's ever seen :D I still love it though ... and it's cute and silly just like my cuddly sweet little boy still is :)

2008 was an interesting year. We ended it with a lot of changes for our family and for our businesses. When we saw this ornament we knew it pretty much summed up our philosophy after a long tough year.


In 2009 we had another baby. Yes, someday we'll have to be more creative with our ornament purchases :) Marilee Noel was born and we knew we wanted something that said "Noel" for her middle name (think about it, her name pretty much means "Happy Christmas" :) Well, we waited until right before Christmas and had the hardest time finding any ornaments left! We finally found one last one at Target and thought it was fun and spunky just like Marilee.

2010 we went to Disneyland for the first time as a family. That trip is one of our happiest memories of this year and the pictures are gigantified on our walls :) So when we saw this ornament at Disneyland we couldn't resist :D
2008
Aunt Tricia has started a collection of ornaments for the kids and this is one of Truman's. It is his very favorite ornament of all time (it talks too!) and he LOVES to put it on the tree in it's special spot.



This ornament is just a funny memory. One year for Christmas Trent wanted an air compressor but in the end we decided it was out of our budget .. but lucky me, I saw this ornament at Sears and just HAD to buy it. I was able to tell him, I did in fact get an air compressor for him for Christmas :)
This is Trumans first ornament from Trish .. he calls it Bill, not Bob :)
I've had this ornament since I was a little girl. I don't even remember all the details but we were at some convention or something and I was given this ornament at one of the booths (it's the 7-Up Spot do you remember him?) I felt SO lucky becuase they weren't passing them out to everyone who passed and I think my parents told me it must have been my cute toothy smile that won me the prize ;) Growing up this was my number one favorite ornament to put on the tree each year.
I love being able to take our mementos and make them into an ornament. This is the horseshoe we got at the blacksmith shop in Nauvoo when we went there for halloween with my family one year.
My sister gave this ornament to me ... another memory from our childhood (and yes, it's a Hallmark, can't you tell?! The details! It kills me. I heart Hallmark). Growing up we would spend magical vacations at Koosharem Utah and there was this little red trike at my grandmas house there and I would ride it around and around and earned the nickname "Biker Chick" :) (Dear sisters, we really need some sort of Koosharem ornament on our trees! Thoughts?)
This ornament is not a memory. I just love it. A lot. It's my favorite non-memory ornament on the tree (so that makes it special right?) I adore the sparkles and the lights.
This was Shaylie's first ornament from her Tricia collection. One year she decided she wanted to play with it and she broke off almost all the princes and princesses! I don't know if you can tell, but they've all been hot glued back on ;)
This is another special Shaylie/Tricia ornament. It's Eden Starling from the Barbie Christmas movie.
My dad's first guide dog was Hobbit and he was with us for a long time. Each year at Christmas my dad put his sleigh bells on his harness and he would jingle his way through the city (he made quite a sight on the Metro and walking through downtown D.C. each day to take my dad to work!) When Hobbit passed away my dad retired his bells and we took them and made ornaments with them. We each have a Hobbit bell on our tree with the reminder that "the bell still rings for all those who truly believe ..."
This adorable ornament is another fun memory (it was even cuter when it still had it's large bell on the bottom ... but the tree fell over this year and the bell fell off!). This is from the year when I was able to go back to Hershey Park at Christmas with my family and my own kids. Such a happy memory!
This ornament was a gift to Trent last year. How could I not resist a Reindeer made completely from TOOLS??? Love it.
And in case anyone was wondering what the proper use for a banana hanger is ... here is the pull back of my images :)
This is just a few of my favorite ornaments. We have filler ornaments too, and each year the kids make an ornament to add to the collection. But my favorite ornaments are always those that are tied to a specific memory. When we open the box each year it's like opening a scrapbook of happy thoughts, places and people that we love. Some of my favorite memories from my own childhood were decorating the tree and listening to the stories of the ornaments again (even though we knew them by heart) as we put them on the tree. It's been fun to see my kids appreciate that same tradition as they get old enough to ask me "Mom, where did we get this ornament?!"