Christmas Collections

Before Mike and I were married (in 1976) I began to collect things for my hope chest (do they still do that?) I wasn’t into quilting, but I was into painting ceramic items purchased at “Accents Unlimited”. I made a lamp, wall decor, and dozens of ornaments for our future Christmas tree. These are just a few of those:

They’ve held up well over the years. As time went on we added to our collection until we’ve reached the point that just about every branch on the tree is adorned with an ornament. And we love having the grandkids help us decorate the tree and rehearse the old stories. They were here along with my parents this past weekend for our annual cookie baking day. Everyone pitched in! Mom made the dough for our traditional spritz cookies, and Trey wanted to learn how to use the press. He did a great job.

The kids helped me cut out the gingerbread cookies, and everyone helped to decorate – even the grandpas!

It was a wonderful day!

So if you look at our tree you’ll see that it certainly doesn’t look like the fancy ones on display in the high end stores. The variety of ornaments in our collection is huge, and the kids wanted to put them all up. I’m sure many of you have ornaments that have stories too. The ones at the bottom of this post were made by our kids/grandkids. Here are some others:

You might remember a previous post about heart ornaments I made with photos of kids and grandkids. Click here if you want to read that post with instructions on how to make them.

Back in the 80s, after my Grandpa died my Grandma Ardis started going to a senior center. She made many ornaments while there, and I love that they cause me to pause and think about her 😊.

Please note the adorable ice skating couple in the upper left.

Some others were gifts from friends.

I made a lot of ornaments too. I painted a bunch of the santa spoons (lower left) years ago, and they still make me smile. And I made oodles of the “Dairy Christmas” cows back in the 80s. They were a big hit in craft fairs.

Mike’s mom gave us a number of his favorite childhood ornaments for our first Christmas. Can you tell he was into aviation even then?!?

When he first hung the pine cone I made a face and said “that’s not very Christmassy”. He responded “This is José. He used to have arms and legs, and I like him!” That was that. Now we have a tradition. Every year I complain about putting José on the tree while Mike, the kids, and grandkids tell me they love him – and laugh and laugh.

There are many ornaments from our various travels.

And of course – there are the special ones about the true gift of Christmas – Jesus!

I have to share just one more photograph. I finished the Christmas quilt I started at our early December retreat! You may remember that I purchased the tree fabric at Liberty’s in London. The things in front of it have a story too: the painted sled was made by my great Uncle Everett, and painted by his wife, Aunt Hazel. The teddy bear was made from Mike’s mom’s fur coat. When I found the toy rocking horse at a thrift store I knew I had to put them all together.

Wishing you the very merriest Christmas!