I’ll start by saying that you can start any of these traditions at any time, but when I was a new mom I really wanted to get Christmas right. I felt a lot of pressure to make sure my children grew up with nostalgic, warm memories of their childhood Christmases. It’s a lot of pressure to put on someone who was only three months postpartum and exhausted.
But that’s the thing about being a mom. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves and we’ll never get it perfect. Giving yourself grace isn’t something you know to do with your first baby, is it?
The Start of Our Tradition
For my oldest daughter’s first Christmas, I really thought about what I wanted to do for her. I remember going to my mom’s to help with her tree and I made a comment about how I wanted one of the ornaments for my own tree, but my mom definitely didn’t want to part with it. It occurred to me then, that I was going to do that for Olivia: I would give her ornaments every year.
My husband and I had been married for a year at that point but I realized that we had already inadvertently started the tradition. At our very first Christmas, when we were dating, my grandma Linda gave us a bulb hand-painted with our names and the year. The year after we bought an ugly rooster ornament because everywhere we went that year, we saw rooster stuff and we thought it was bizarre. The year we got married we had countless first Christmas, wedding, or first home themed ornaments. When my daughter came along, I purchased a “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament for her and decided that we would continue then annual ornament tradition. Every year we would get an ornament that reminded us of the year.
Our Collection Grows
The next year, Olivia picked out an ornament of Ernie from Sesame Street. The year after that we had our son, Jackson, so he got his first Christmas ornament, but Olivia also picked one out. We’ve done it every year since. Now we have four kids, we have gone on countless road trips and vacations. (I get an ornament from every vacation spot or crazy road side attraction, of course.) Our tree is completely full of unique and bizarre ornaments. I told my husband we may need to get two trees: a smaller tree for travel ornaments and our big tree for kid ornaments.
Every year after the holidays, I take down the ornaments and put each child’s collection in their own storage box. The hope is that someday, when they go out on their own, they’ll get their box of ornaments and they’ll have a little piece of home with them. I think they will treasure these more than the artwork and craft projects from years ago. (Truth alert: I throw them all out. It’s true. I have not one piece of artwork!)
Our ornaments this year are pretty fun. Olivia and Jackson were really into the Harry Potter series, so Jackson chose Harry Potter and Olivia chose Voldemort. (Pretty fitting because sometimes their relationship is similar and they fight over the same blanket on the couch even though it’s big enough to cover a small army.) Penelope chose a shiny roller skate and Lucy chose Moana (it was between Moana and Spiderman but seeing this movie 1,180 times this year swayed her decision.) Our family ornament was a beaded zebra I got when we went to Kalahari in the Wisconsin Dells for a two night trip. I also bought an ornament of the It’s a Small World ride at Disney, which is my favorite ride. The ride might shut down or be replaced someday, but it will live forever on my tree.
Revisiting Family Memories
Every year when we decorate the tree it’s a trip down memory lane. We all talk about the ornaments, why the picked those particular ones, and start talking about all of the fun things we’ve done as a family. Unknowingly fifteen years ago, I started a tradition that would become crucial for my connection to our family memories. Since the traumatic birth of Lucy, I have short term memory loss but I have also lost long term memories. I can’t remember my wedding, or the kids’ first trip to Disney World for instance. So when they pull out an ornament and tell me all about it, it’s like I’m getting a little bit of those memories back, even if for just a few minutes.
I think the kids will remember this tradition more than the Elf on a Shelf (who sits on the same shelf all month in my house because that’s what his name implies), or the lengths I went to maintain Santa. They’ll have fun stories for sure, but these ornaments will always give them the connection to home and to their family, long after we’re gone. I’d like to think they’ll get past down and eventually be vintage and cool, but time will tell.
