Morning Glory is hosting a time for us to share special Christmas tree ornaments and any stories behind them. We just got our tree up Saturday, and I am just getting the pictures up today.

I don’t know if any other moms struggled with this, but early on I had to make a decision between whether I’d have a “designer” tree with everything to my tastes and “just so,” or whether to have a tree the whole family could participate in. Of course, the latter won out: family is a big part of Christmas, not having everything decorated a certain way. So, this tree is a hodgepodge, but we have fun with it. 🙂

Here is the full view:

These are some felts ones I made early on in our marriage, I think from a kit. I love the little sheep.

This is a Boyd’s Bear ornament my dear friend Carol gave me:

This is from a set of Victorian ornaments that I love which icludes a ball and a teardrop shape with the same little flower cluster:

This is a nativity ornament which clips on to one of the light bulbs so it shines through. Someone gave this to someone else at a Secret Sister Christmas party at church, and I liked it so much I went out and bought one for us. 🙂 I think it is the only Hallmark ornament we have.

This is from a gingerbread man set. I think I got it (just because it is cute) from a store we used to have nearby that sold pools in the summer and Christmas stuff in the fall and winter, but it went out of business.

One of my sisters made these little cross-stitch banners for us one year.

This is from a cute little button and wire set.

This is one I made early on. It has about 1/3 of a toilet paper roll inside and is wrapped in a strip of red felt. White felt circles go over the ends and cross-stitch floss is used to sew the tops and bottoms on in that drum-like pattern. Then little strips of felt are rolled around the end of toothpicks for the drumsticks, and they are glued on. This is made to sit on a branch, but you could use the same floss to make a loop through the edge of the top white felt circle.

This is from a cute little felt snowman set I liked. I bought it rather than made it, but I made the little plastic canvas candy cane.

I took these off so I could take a picture of them in a set. I made them when I worked at a fabric store. Different workers would be asked to make different things from the store, the store would provide the materials, and we would get to keep them after they were taken off display. These are very simple, just cut from the print-outs on the cloth, sewn, and stuffed. If I were doing them today I would add some decorative stitching or quilting or something. I am almost to the point of not really wanting to use them any more, but the kids still love them. When they were little, they would be allowed to hang these and other soft ornaments on the lower branches while Jim and I hung the more delicate ones up high. As they got older, they were convinced that the little girl ornament was carrying an axe rather than a tree and that she was after the boy ornament with it, and they would hang them right next to each other. Boys. 🙂 🙄

This is another one I bought “just because” I thought it was pretty, and I love heart shapes.

These are a set I bought, I think, from some home-party company. Jesse enjoyed hanging them in a diagonal row across the front of the tree.

I don’t know where we got this one. I think maybe one of the kids got it during a Christmas party. It’s another one I would probably toss except they love it: they call it the “the misshapen bear.” I don’t know what happened to its little face. The white underneath is from a snowman ornament that is a little behind it from this perspective.

This one is special to me because it is one of the first ones I ever made. I found the little circle, stained it, found the little miniature tree, dipped the tips of its branches in glue and then it different colors of glitter, then glued it into the circle and added a gold thread loop.

When Jeremy and Jason were first in school, the school they were in asked committees of moms to make ornaments for the class each year. The ornaments were different from year to year and class to class just depending on what the moms for each room wanted to do. Eventually they stopped, I think because they didn’t have enough moms who had the time to keep doing it. I wished I had kept up the tradition of making an ornament for each of them each year. This is just one of those, made when Jeremy was in second grade.

This is, I think, our newest one, bought last year at the Christian bookstore. Having all boys, I’ve loved cards and ornaments with little shepherd boys.

This is from a set someone made for us, and, though I really appreciate the thought…. I don’t really like the ornaments themselves. But the boys love them.

This is one of my two attempts at One Stroke painting.

This is one of several cross-stitch ornaments I made several years ago. I think these were the first things I cross-stitched.

So, there you have a sampling of some of our favorite ornaments…a mixture of home-made and store-bought, elegant and childish, cute and….not. 🙂 We always enjoy putting them on as a family. Each boy has his own special ones he likes to put on, and we like to go over the stories of them.

Now, I am going to try to publish this post and hope it doesn’t crash with all of the pictures. 🙂 Come over to Morning Glory’s and scroll down to the Christmas tree treasure post to see some others’ treasures or link to your own.