Gifts, revealed: ornmaments

As I described last year, it's our old tradition that I give Andi an ornament each Christmas, symbolic of that year, and our new tradition to do the same for Lucy. It was so much fun this year, decorating the tree and telling Lucy about each of our ornaments. She showed every visitor to our house her special ornaments, explaining who'd given each one. Pure joy.

So, this year...

I struggled to think of the perfect ornament for Andi. It's been a hard year, full of exhaustion and personal struggles. In the end, I settled on a wish for the new year:

A simple pillow, embroidered with a hope for "rest" and a heart on the back, stuffed with lavender for rest and rosemary for remembrance. (I'd show a picture of it on the tree, but it seems to have disappeared to wherever the cats stash their favorite ornaments.)

And for Lucy, a bird. I wavered between "birds" and "stories" for her, as she's both fallen in love with birds and asks a hundred times daily for a "story, Mama, story." In the end, I went with a bird, as she fell for them so soon and continued on in her love for them all year--from our chickens, to the seagulls in Bar Harbor, to the birds in our yard. And so I made her this simple embroidered wool bird, with a tail made from one of our chicken feathers:

(The embroidery was inspired by a book I bought as a gift for a friend...and now want for myself!)

Christmas cards, reincarnated

We finally got all the Christmas things stored away this weekend, and tucked in with them are some new ornaments. After I saw these, I knew I wanted to make some; and in the spirit of do-it-while-it's-fresh-in-your-mind, I did it this weekend, using this year's Christmas cards. (We keep those with letters from family and friends, but if it's just signed? It's getting chopped up and remade into something else. Usually tags for next year's gifts, but we have too many of those right now...)





Ok, so it's not a gift, but it is for Christmas next year, so maybe it's a start in the right direction?

The specifics:

For my first one, I cut the suggested measurements in half, to accommodate the smaller size of the cards. It was hard to curve the pieces without bending them when they were that little.

For the following ones, I just made the strips about an inch different from each other: almost 8 inches, almost 7 inches, 6 inches, 5 inches, for example, using full strips sometimes and cutting some to make them short enough.

I had a hard time getting a good photo, but I think you get the gist. I plan to hang them in windows next year.

Old traditions, new ornaments

Hope you're not getting tired of Christmas yet, because I've still got more to share!



It's been our tradition that I give a new ornament to Andi each Christmas, representing our year. This year, of course, it had to be Lucy.

And we started a new tradition: making an ornament each year for Lucy. When I thought back on her year, for one thing that would symbolize it, I thought of the blanket Andi knitted while she was pregnant. She made the "Big Bad Baby Blanket" from Stitch 'N Bitch, using a gorgeous, soft red wool. There was just a bit left. I asked her to make a mini version for Lucy's first ornament, and I love how it came out.



Lucy got a few other ornaments, too. From her Granny, she got this "baby's first Christmas" ornament:



She said she settled for a pea pod because she couldn't find a string bean. It also reminded her of Lucy in her hammock.

Lucy's Nanny gave her this ornament, fair trade from Guatemala. It reminded her of Lucy in the sling, of course:



I started a journal for Lucy, to keep track of her ornaments. I imagine her someday unwrapping each ornament as she decorates her tree with her children and shares each one's story.

O, Tannenbaum

I've enjoyed getting glimpses of other people's Christmas trees on various blogs, so here's ours (filling up with all the packages we've received so far in the mail):



Here we are at the tree farm where we go every year, cutting the "perfect" tree. It takes us ages to agree on just the right one. It has to be very skinny to fit into our small rooms. And not too tall--I can touch our ceilings without standing on tiptoe. But we don't want it to be too sparse. This year, we think we got a great one.



Between both of us working full time, and raising a baby, and trying to keep the house neat enough to present to parents each morning after 6 kids trash it every day, and trying to make all our gifts, there's no time for decorating. We set up the tree and it sat for a few days with only lights, while the kids kept asking why we hadn't decorated it yet. Finally, I decided to have them do it (if you're new to my blog, these are not my kids I'm talking about; they're the 1-5 year-olds in my early childhood program). We left the very lowest branches bare to protect the ornaments from cats and babies. (I might have done a teensy tiny bit of stealthy re-arranging of ornaments...)

It was only mostly decorated at that point, because I saved our "special" ornaments to put on later with Andi. These are the ornaments that represent our years together; I've given one to her every year since our third Christmas together (1992), reflecting something important from that year in our life. Here are a few of them...

The chicken I made last year, when we added 3 chickens to our household. This one resembles Gertie, our Black Australorp:



The board, sandpaper, and saw ornament I made the year we spent doing nothing but major DIY home renovations (boy, is it hard to photograph these well!):



A rowboat we bought on the vacation we took to celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary. The cottage we rented had rowboats available, and we spent one lovely morning rowing on the cove there.



Otherwise, our tree has a very Scandinavian look, mostly red and white and straw. That was my parents' aesthetic, so now to me, it's the way a tree "should" look. Also essential to me are these crocheted snowflakes, made by my grandmother and her sisters. Her tree had them, as did ours and my aunt's, and to my childhood mind, every tree. I inherited a lot of them and love them so much.



I also have a lot of Dutch-themed ornaments, reflecting the heritage of my mother's side of the family (the only side I really knew). These wooden shoes are one of three pairs. I have 2 sisters, and growing up, my mother always bought ornaments in sets of three, so she could eventually divide them among us. Again, that feels like the way it "should" be, so when I buy ornaments or make them, I do it in threes.



I love our tree. I love that it looks like our trees growing up, but also reflects our own little immediate family specifically. It looks nothing like the trees of anyone else I know, and as much as I like and admire other people's beautifully-decorated trees, ours feels exactly right for us.