Ornament Memories

As a child my mother insisted on having a "theme" tree in our main living room every other year.
I hated it. There was nothing more "un-Christmas" like to me than a mauve and country blue tree with glass ornaments and white lights. I am more of a multi-colored, crazy ornaments, completely mismatched tree kind of gal. But my mom was the boss, so we rotated.

In my house, EVERY year is a multi-colored year and every year our ornament collection gets bigger and bigger with gifts from Grandma's and Nana's. The kids will have an endless supply of ornaments to take to their own trees one day. But for now they joyfully accessorize our family tree every year.

Now don't get me wrong all you "theme" tree people. I am sure that your trees are lovely. But theme trees are just not my thing. And honestly, at this point, my kids might revolt against me if I even tried. They love pulling out the ornaments and guessing whose it is. It's almost a Christmas game. So I thought I would bring this age old tradition to my blog this Christmas. Every day along with whatever other posts may appear, I will give you a Gaffner ornament story. And in return? If you, in the comment section below, would tell a story about one of your ornaments, you may just win your very own 2010 personalized ornament made by none other than the Gaffner Chaos themselves. We'll see how this goes. I look forward to reading your stories.

For today, I give you....

"Our First Christmas" ornament of 2004.

The Christmas of 2004 were the "firsts" for many things in my life. It was my first Christmas as a married woman, first Christmas as a step-mother, and first Christmas as a pregnant mom-to-be. It was an eventful year in my life. As such, the ornament carries with it many memories of the beginning of my life as the Gaffner Chaos Manager. 

This ornament was a gift from my mother to memorialize the many blessings of the year. And our kids all "ooh"ed and "ahh"ed as they placed it on the tree this weekend. It's our "wedding ornament" as Sierra called it and is a material reminder of the joy and celebration of starting a new life.

Oh and Christopher decided that he should have his picture taken today too... so he posed with the tree. What a good little boy.