For the first time… ever, I think… the halls in our home are decked, with only a little bit of holly, but decked none the less before the month of December has even started. Faith begged and begged the day after Thanksgiving. Hard to turn down her pleas, especially with the comic strip she gave me titled “The Best Mom Ever”. She’s good.
Anyway, we saved the best for last: the tree.
Our family (namely, HB) has a ritual for decorating the tree. We (namely, HB) are real sticklers about following the routine. First, HB and My Sweetie put the tree together, then HB strings the lights, then HB strings the fake cranberry garland, then HB strings the silver ball garland. After all that, everyone else (namely HB’s siblings) may touch the tree, ie. the kids get to put their ornaments on the tree.
Yes, their ornaments. See, each kiddo has a large Ziploc bag containing the ornaments that they have been given (or I designate as theirs) over the years. They each get very excited about looking at their special ornaments before putting them on the tree.
The older kids have quite a collection. They really enjoy spreading out all their ornaments and looking at them all while the tree gets prepped and talking about special ones. Someone (namely, unnamed) often gets sappy about how little the kids were when the received an ornament or two. Others (namely, everyone else), smiles and shakes their heads.
I used to give them each a ornament representing something special from their year, but I bailed on that awhile ago. Now, they pretty much all get the same ornament (namely, one I like and find on sale).
When they are given an ornament, I put their initials on the bottom just in case disputes arise later (I’m sure that would never happen at your house). For the younger kiddos, I usually give them an extra ornament (or two) their first couple of Christmas’ tree decorating participation years (you know, when they are beyond the put-whatever-Mama-hands-me-on-the-tree phase).
When my precious babies grow up and get married, I will give them their bag of ornaments for their tree. Until then, they will reminisce and decorate our family tree with their special ones (and shake their heads at their sentimental mother).
When Christmas is over, they retrieve their ornaments and place them in the bag (I keep some bubble wrap handy) until next year.
Where we will repeat the tradition, grinning all the while.
Each kid having their own bag of ornaments works for me and it helps this large family enjoy some fun organization in decking the tree. Sure, we still have family ornaments that we use too, but this little tradition makes decorating the tree even more special. Check out Raising Arrows for more tips for large family living and We are THAT Family for tips on hundreds of things.
How do you decorate your tree?
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What about a pickle ornament? Every tree should have at least one!
For the first few years I put the Christmas tree up. Until I realized my husband is better than I am at it. Now it’s his job.
We do yearly ornaments, they are always Hallmark, and it gets spendy but about 10 years ago I saw a real benefit to buying these expensive ornaments. I lost *all* of my Christmas ornaments when my mother was upable to pay for her storage unit. All the ornaments got dumped/sold. Luckily, I was a spoiled only grandchild, whom my Nana always bought Hallmark ornaments. So over the last few years I’ve been rebuying all my ornaments through ebay as I can afford them. Hallmark has HUGE lists of all the ornaments they’ve had over the past 40 years, so it makes it easy for me to remember which I had.
Not only do they get the spendy ornaments, but they also have a list which says what ornament they got which year. I also keep the box, because I am not a fan of writing on the ornaments, but all of my husband’s ornaments are written on, and the box was thrown out years ago.
My in-laws still have the same tree they’ve had for over 30 years. My sis-in-law won’t let them get rid of it. It looks terrible! It’s so bare, and pretty soon I’m going to start calling it the Charlie Brown tree. The stand is also broken, and the tree has been tied down with string and heavy baskets to weigh it down. This year it was nailed into the wall. My husband and I laugh about this alot.
You need to add a pic of the tree to your post.
I give each grandchild a new ornament every year to put on my tree.
Each year Lindsey gets an Angel,Matthew a snowman and Charlie gets
a penguin.Lindsey got her 10th angel this year.Matthew his 6th snowman and Charlie has 3 penguins.I hope to be able to buy many more so when they are grown they will be able to look back and recall with delight when they got each one.I always put the year on it.
I am so going to be sorting ornaments by child when we take the tree down! This would be one of those moments when I wonder WHY didn’t I think of THAT?! What a blessing you are! Have a wonderful Christmas season building up the anticipation of the gift of Christ!
We’ve been doing this same thing for years….but in addition to the child’s name/initials, we put on the year as well….the kids love to see how old they were when they got a particular ornament – they also can hardly wait to get their new one every year!
Ziploc bags is a genius idea! My mom gives us an ornament every Christmas,too. Decorating the tree is a family event. We wait until everyone is done with school then pick a free evening and decorate the tree. It’s always fun looking at the ornaments we’ve gotten over the years and hearing my mom tell stories about the ornaments she and my dad bought together or that belonged to her family when she was growing up. Once the tree is done, we eat peppermint ice cream and watch our favorite Christmas movie, Miracle At Moreaux. I look forward to this special family time all fall!
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