Traditions: Ornament Edition

One of my favorite things about the holidays is bringing special traditions from my childhood to now do with Eliza. When we were little my mom bought each one of us a new ornament for the tree each year. The coolest thing about these ornaments is that they usually reflected or represented things that we were involved in or things that we had done as a family.

Long before I became a mom, I knew I wanted to start this tradition for my family. This year as we decorated the tree Eliza was super excited each time I gave her one of her special ornaments to put on tree.

Here is a quick look at her collection so far:

Christmas 2007:

Even though she wasn't born yet, I decided to initiate the tradition. Since we did not announce her name until she was born, we just called her "muppet" because Stephen said that one of her ultra sound pictures reminded him of a muppet. I found Elmo at a Christmas store and knew he was the perfect ornament to begin our tradition with.

Christmas 2008:

This ornament came to us from Aunt Mare and it says "Baby's 1st Christmas" on the back. I love that it represents her first Christmas as well as reminds us what she looked like during that time.

Christmas 2009:

This was the first year that Eliza was allowed to pick her own ornament. Out of all the ornaments in Target Eliza decided that she wanted Elmo (this was during the time of her brief Elmo obsession). I actually think it is sweet that we have two Elmo's to represent two very different milestones.

Christmas 2010:

Before she could really walk or talk, Stephen started teaching her how to do the Hook'Em Horns symbol. As soon as she saw Beevo at Hobby Lobby last year, I knew that we had found her special ornament for the year.

Christmas 2011:

This year's ornament also came from Hobby Lobby but we bought it in September. Eliza started taking dance lessons this year and she loves to pretend that she is princess so a ballerina princess is the perfect way to remember 2011.

This is one of my very favorite traditions and I can't wait to see what will grace our tree next year.