Decorating for Christmas!

So it's been about six months that we've had our house now, and the kitchen renovations are almost done (yay!), and since it's Christmas and there is soooo much else going on, we've taken a little break from renovating the house and focused more on decorating the house. After getting ready for Thanksgiving, I wasn't ready to instantly create a winter wonderland just yet (even though the snow did come on Dec. 1!). So this weekend we finally got around to getting a Christmas tree and decorating it!

As we were putting up the many different and diverse ornaments, it reminded me of lots of memories or symbolic memories that are found in most all of them, and I thought I'd take a stroll down memory lane and share some with you for the next week or so. After reading one of my friend's blogs on a similar topic, I decided it was worth sharing with all of you! So I hope you enjoy and I also hope it stimulates some of your own decorating / ornament / family / friends memories! Please feel free to share them with me by commenting below!

Each post I'll try to keep a theme, so for the first group of pictures I'll be selecting some of my childhood ornaments and memories to share with you.

The glass pickle ornament is an old German tradition. Each year families would "hide" the pickle ornament on the tree somewhere and children would try to find it to get a special present. This ornament was a gift from my (German) grandmother, who first told my sister and I about this tradition when we were very young (but old enough to find a pickle!). That first Christmas there were two pickles on the tree - one for me and one for my sister. Every year since then we have made it our tradition to "hide" our pickles on the tree just for fun (no special gifts to those who found them).

Another one of my family Christmas traditions was going to see the Nutcracker ballet each year downtown. I (more than my sister) simply loved the ballet, and even had visions of becoming a ballerina (unfortunately, one year of ballet class when I was 6 cleared that dream - professionally, at least). The Nutcracker was my absolute favorite Christmas tradition, and even when I got older and we stopped going to the ballet (Dad was falling asleep through most of it!), I still would listen to Tchaikovsky played by the London symphony orchestra each year - still do! This ballet shoe was one of a pair given to my sister and I by my mother, and reminds me of the fun girlie dreams I had of being a ballerina!

There were many glass ornaments given to me over the years from my mother and grandmother - many from German shops and some even made in Germany. They were precious to me as a child because they were so fragile - extra special care was taken to make sure they survived through 20+ Christmases to make it to my own Christmas tree as an adult. This ornament I actually found in Virginia while visiting a friend, and I found similar ones that were shaped as a basketball, tennis ball and football for my sister, mother, and father (respectively). My hope is that I can keep these glass ornaments long enough to pass on to my own children someday!

Well I hope you have enjoyed this brief trip down my memory lane, and I'd be delighted to hear about your own recollections. More to come later this week! Happy Decorating!