A Christmas Ornament Tradition (and giveaway!)
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Ahh, the holiday season. It’s the season to celebrate with family and friends, to honor old traditions, and to create new traditions. Jes Gwozdz is blogging today about a tradition her family created involving ornaments. Be sure to read all the way to the end to participate in a great giveaway! The holidays are coming up quickly, so this is a quick giveaway. 😉
Our Family’s Ornament Tradition
by Jessica Gwozdz
When I was a kid, my parents started a tradition of giving my brother and I a new Christmas ornament each year. Their thought process behind this was that someday when my brother and I grew up and had our own homes, we would automatically have enough ornaments to fill a tree. The ornaments from my parents were all different kinds of things. Sometimes the ornaments were simply something cute that my parents liked, and sometimes the ornaments were related to a particular hobby or interest we were involved in that year. My grandmother started participating in this tradition by purchasing the Hallmark Nostalgic Houses & Shops ornaments series for her three granddaughters. If you have not seen that series I wanted to tell you that it is really neat because the ornaments have the year as the address number on the house.
My mom was right. It was really great to have so many ornaments when it was time to decorate my first tree as an adult. The tradition continued even after I was on my own, and also even after I met my husband. My family bought ornaments for both of us. We have a John Hancock building ornament to honor the place that my husband proposed. He has his University of Illinois ornament and I have my Marquette University one.
When I had my kids, the tradition continued and grew. Besides the kids receiving sentimental ornaments as gifts, I create a photo ornament each year. We have also started getting ornaments on our vacations as souvenirs. Like me, my kids will have enough ornaments to fill a tree when they grow up and have their own homes.
Sometimes I look with jealousy at friends’ Christmas trees that are so beautifully planned out and color-coordinated. However, my Christmas tree is an eclectic mix of ornaments that tell the story of my family. Through our ornament collection, I can watch my kids grow up, remember attending the Twilight movie triple feature with my friends, or reminisce about our family trip to Yosemite National Park. My Christmas tree will not win a style award, but our ornaments are treasures that we all look forward to putting up each holiday season. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Jessica Gwozdz ran a successful portrait business in Chicago for 10 years before relocating to Bellingham, Washington this past summer. Jes is a studio lighting instructor at The Photographer Within. When not spending time doing photography, Jes likes to relax with her husband, their two children, and their new rescue dog.
In honor of the holidays, our friend Aileen at Charming Memories has offered a free custom photo ornament or keychain to one TPW blog reader. This giveaway is open to all U.S. residents. All you need to do is like both The Photographer Within and Charming Memories on Facebook, then come back here and leave a comment before 5pm eastern time on Saturday 12/14/2013. Then we will use a random number generator to choose the lucky winner!
UPDATED 12/14: Congratulations to our lucky winner Lisa Sheehan!
000Tags: Christmas, Holiday Giveaway, Photo ornaments, Photo Projects, photography forum
Categorized in: Giveaways
49 Comments
We have the same tradition in our household! We buy ornaments from vacations, representing things we do (hobbies, sports, etc.), and of course I have the cherished glue and styrofoam ornaments from Pre-K and Kindergarten, etc. In fact, I still have my early childhood homemade ornaments hanging on MY tree! So special!
We have a similar tradition! We now have a collection of ornaments dating back to 1977, and I cherish them so much!
We have the same tradition, too! I love looking back with my two boys and reminiscing about what they were “into” that year. I look forward to watching the tradition grow with them.
Aww i love this! Our tree is a mixture of gold and silver coordinated ornsments and then colorful ( sometimes gaudy) ornaments that are more sentimental. It is these more colorful meaningful ones that we have a little conversation about each year as we place them on the tree and i know my daughter treasures them most!
I’m glad it’s never to late to start new traditions–I’m so inspired by this!
I love this tradition! I have always given my husband an ornament the night we decorate the tree.
We do the same thing! The kids get to pick out an ornament every year! I would love to get into the photo ornaments though, that is a great idea 😉
That is such a great tradition!! Maybe one that I will start. Better late than never, right? 😉
I love how your tree tells a story. I have to admit I am partial to the decorated tree, but as our family has grown we have added special memory ornaments-I treasure those.
Liked you both 🙂
Our tree is an eclectic mess too… And I wouldn’t have it any other way 🙂
Love this idea!! I want to start it with my family! 🙂
My parents did the same and I love looking back on the ornaments from my childhood with my own children. 🙂 Thanks for the chance to win…..I love that photo keychain!!
We collect ornaments on vacations, too. And I have several from my childhood hanging on our tree now. Ornaments = great memories!!
I love this! My favorite ornaments are always the ones we make with our annual Santa photos.
We haven’t bought ornaments each year but I do have some that my grandma made just waiting for the kids trees when they are grown. It would be awesome to have a few photo ornaments to add to that. What a good idea!
We do the same thing! Ever since we started dating, he has gotten me a “sweetheart” type of hallmark ornament each year. 2 years ago he waited til last minute & got me one that says “always remembered & loved”…turns out that was an ornament to honor a loved one who has DIED! We still get a chuckle out of that. As a family we get an ornament every year on vacation, & my daughter I I get one every time we go see a show (like Mary poppins, etc)
And my husband gets her a special ornament every year.
I am with you–I’ll take our eclectic ornament tree any year over a coordinated one!
We have a ca-razy Christmas tree with all sorts of memories on it and I LOVE it 🙂
I just liked both Facebook pages 🙂
We do this too!! I liked TPW!!
We have the same tradition for our children. Every year they love looking at their ornaments and I can’t wait until they have the same tradition with their kids.
Liked both – LOVE this tradition! We get the kids one each year too, and it makes my heart smile each year we put them up :o)
My brother and I had a box of ornaments each and our own tree. We weren’t supposed to touch mom’s. I started out the same way, but soon realized I prefered to have them help with the tree. I have way more ornaments than I have room for, so I save the stuff that doesn’t fit to give to the boys when they are on their own.
We have a similar tradition at our house too! Except, we made new ornaments every year and decorated with those… and then each year, we would just add them to our tree. One year we made gingerbread men with cardboard and puff paint. One year we made little sheep out of yarn…it goes on and on. Now, we have way too many ornaments to put all of them on our tree. So, we put some of each year on. Maybe one day when they are out on their own they can take a part of the collection with them and put on their own trees. I really think the memories make the occasion so much more special!
Thanks for the giveaway opportunity!
We have a similar tradition but every year I let the children choose a new ornament each 🙂
My mom also did this for us. I have my baby’s first Christmas ornament, my tennis ornament from high school, my dollhouse ornaments, my Marilyn Monroe…so many. It is a wonderful tradition. Need to start this for my kiddos. Photos ornaments are such a great idea. I also love the idea of vacation ornaments!!!! : )
We have the same tradition! I love my motley crew of ornaments. Each one holds a story 🙂
We do that too! And our tree is eclectic and crazy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way!!!!! I think your tree and ornaments are PERFECT.
I love having a tree filled with special memories! Your tree is perfect.
Such a wonderful tradition! I bought each of the kids an ornament this year – it would be great to do it every year 🙂
This is wonderful! We do the same thing – it’s such a great trip down memory lane every year! 🙂
We do the same thing! And with 3 kids we’ve collected quite a large stash of ornaments. Soon we’ll need to put up two trees!! 🙂
We do the same thing!! Love this tradition so much 🙂
I love this! We are starting this tradition with my little guy this year for just th
Love these!
We have been collecting ornaments from places we have lived/been and things we have done, and ornaments the kids have made themselves… it’s fun to have those memories year after year.
I have started this tradition with my own kids. Every year after Christmas we go out and I have them each pick them an ornament, it is fun to go through them year after year.
Great idea! Will start that for my kids too!
We do that too! Love our eclectic tree!
I also buy my girls an ornament every year and plan on giving them to them when they move out. We also have the ‘Christmas Pickle’ ornament which the girls love to hunt for!!
What an awesome tradition!
My parents have given me most of my childhood ornaments… And I collect for my boys, although I think it will be hard for me to give them up when the time comes! 😉
I’ve started this with my son as well and recently saw this amazing color coordinated decorated tree on pinterest and thought ‘mine will never look like that.’ My mother also has been giving me the hallmark mary angels for years. I do secretly hope they stop making them soon – though. This year, I look forward to giving my son his truck ornament. 😉
This is a fabulous idea and I love the picture ornaments!
Our mismatched tree is my favorite and this looks like a new tradition we’ll be starting ASAP!
So happy to see that you are carrying on the tradition. Love knowing my munchkins, Grace and Henry, will have a full tree when they start out on their own. Your grandmother will like knowing that you appreciate getting the Hallmark series all these years. Hope we will get a new picture ornament this year and,maybe if you had time, a new “munchkin” calendar.
started doing this with my oldest about 5yrs ago…its so nice to pull them out and see how much she has grown over these few short years 🙂 (both pages liked!) 🙂
wish this would include Canadians 🙁
Wishing I had holiday ornament traditions such as photo ornaments or ornaments from our vacations. Maybe that will be something I start in 2014… New year, new tradition. (Both pages are liked btw).
LOL I love the idea!! That is wonderful. We don’t celebrate Christmas in the traditional sense in my home like that but it would be neat to have traditions like that!
How funny that you wrote this article Jes! My mother started buying my sister and I dated Hallmark ornaments when I was 7 and she was 2. She gave me them once I moved out and had a significant other. When we started having kids, I continued the tradition and every year I love when we get out the ornaments, separate them and hang them. They make fun of me when I get all sentimental about hanging my ornaments, but I know they love and appreciate the ornaments, and I hope one day, they will get all sappy and sentimental when they start hanging their ornaments on their own family christmas tree. Thanks for sharing!!
Truly inspiring!! Hugs!