Merry Christmas

In our family, ornaments are a big deal. Each one is special, unique. We love them all and spend a lot of time decorating the tree as we pull out each ornament and talk about what we were doing during that time. We talk about that year and what makes that item personal to us. Just like the pictures we have on the walls in our home, we don't have any ornaments that aren't meaningful. We thought we could share some of them with you.

 This black angel was a gift from our 'second family', the Lucks. They lovingly gave it to us Christmas 2007 that we spent with them. We were 3,000 miles from home in a totally new place and they welcomed us in and made Christmas awesome. They also gave us a manger that we display on the mantel. 

This was a gift from Brad's Mom- I can't remember which year. Maybe 2005. It's a nail and has a red ribbon on it. It represents Christ and has a poem to go with it.

This is one from 2007 that Brad's parents brought back from Hawaii. The back has our names in beautiful calligraphy and was done by a Polynesian woman.

We have a lot of "first Christmas" ornaments because we were married 5 days before Christmas

 This is one I found for Brad and I to mark the year we bought our first home. Someday when we move, I'll probably attach the key to the back as long as it won't scratch the porcelain. 

This one is from Christmas 2009, when Brad was going to BYU. He graduated the next April and off we moved to Iowa. We always talk about how hesitant we were to move to Utah but we ended up loving it.

And I saved the best for last :) This is a Swarovski crystal snowflake that has a small silver plate with the year engraved- 2003. Brad and I had just gotten married five days prior and this was a beautiful gift Brad's Dad picked out for me himself. It is incredibly detailed and beautiful. We haven't yet found anything better to grace the trop of the tree so each year we wrap the ribbon around and at the top it goes.

Of course we have many, many more ornaments but I didn't want to bore you too much :) It's just one of our traditions that we love and will continue with our kids someday. 

Merry Christmas!