We have a couple of traditions in our house for Christmas. The first is, we have two trees. The first tree, which is also the biggest is our "normal" tree. It holds all of our ornaments like Baby's first Christmas, every ornament the kids made at church, you know, all that cutesy stuff. It looks like this...
The other thing I do with this tree is put icicles on it. I used to have beautiful ribbon trailing down the sides, but as our family began expanding, so did the amount of ornaments. So now, we only do the icicles, which I love because they catch the light. Some are glass that I picked up in a neat little shop while Christmas shopping with my Grandma, and the rest are from the dollar store.
Which leads me to family tradition #2. When I was a kid, I had a best friend. Her family had these beautiful houses on their mantle. They collected one a year. I thought that is the coolest thing ever. So, that is what we have done. There have been years that were harder than others where we haven't been able to get a house...but what I love about this tradition, is the kids have ultimately picked out these houses.
Happy picked out the barbie one, Scooter picked out the crayola one, and Super picked out the candy factory. This year Scrappy-Doo picked out the train. Next year, we will let Screacher pick out one, this year the key is to keep her as far away from the prized houses as possible :)
Our third tradition is almost the most special tradition of them all. It is our second tree. This is called "The Jewel Tree". You see The Jewel Tree was my Grandma's. She made almost every ornament on it. She used to put it in her room every year, on a circulating white tree....away from all the little Grandkid hands. But we would oooohhhh and aaaaahhh over it every year. My Grandma died from Breast Cancer when Happy was two years old. I got the jewel tree. I remember her making ornaments, she taught my Mom and Aunt how to make them, and my cousins and I how to make them...so now, my Mom showed my kids how to make them...There are four generations of ornaments on this tree.
This tree hasn't been put up every year. For instance, when Super was little, that tree didn't see the light of day for 5 years. But, Scrappy and Screacher are a little more mellow, so the tree is up...and all my kids ooohhh and aaaahhhh over it every year. If anyone is interested in starting a jewel tree of their own, they still sell these ornament kits at craft stores like Michael's.
My Grandma made the first one, my Mom the second, and I made the third.
Scooter made this one.
Tradition #4 is a new tradition. Everyone is doing this Elf on a Shelf thing. As I was pulling out all my Christmas decorations, I found this...
A very old family elf, it belongs to my Mom, so I asked her if I
could keep it...and she said yes...so the kids are very excited what kind of trouble this little elf is going to make. This could make for a very exciting Christmas season.
-Sister Scrappy
What kind of family traditions does your family have? We would love to hear and maybe add to our own! Comment below!
SO Awesome Scrappy! =)
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