For me, Christmas is all about traditions. It’s about the consequential and inconsequential moments that are shared with loved ones in the midst of a season about love and giving. To that effect, when it came time to get our very first Christmas tree, we bought a tree rug off the shelf at Home Depot, set up our inherited stand, and strung up lights that paid homage to those I cherished on my parents tree growing up. But I couldn’t bring myself to be okay with slapping a few boxes of generic ornaments from Target up on our tree. I find the Christmas trees with the hodgepodge of meaningful ornaments incredibly endearing and the stories that I can’t help but imagine the beautiful story or moment that each ornament signifies on those mismatched trees. It’s what I wanted for our home.
Fast forward to a few weeks later and the first seven ornaments have been added to our collection. They are also the only seven ornaments on our tree but, hey, baby steps! The first we added was a perfectly glittery Eiffel Tower that was part of each centerpiece in our wedding, a nod to our engagement. The next is a simple, charming wooden ornament full of love and paying tribute to our Olympia roots. It also represents our 2015 big moment of buying our first house in Olympia. Moving on to round out our 2015 memories is a clear ornament that I stuffed our little man’s first collar in (so tiny!) and adored with “Sampson’s First Christmas”. 2016 was the year of the remodel so a sparkly hammer felt appropriate. The whale is a bit of a joke between Cameron and I that stemmed from the fact the solitary item on our wedding registry that Cameron had an opinion on was a set of whale sheets and matching vase. The. Only. One. We also added a gorgeous gold music note that mom and dad brought back from their trip to Nashville last week. Finally, we have a baby Kong for Sampson’s second Christmas as his favorite toy is a larger version.
While our ornament accumulation is admittedly still in its infancy, I’m already looking forward to adding to it throughout the years and explaining the stories behind each ornament to future generations.
