Our Christmas Traditions

There are ornaments hanging on our Christmas tree that I made dating back to 1974. I was 4, for those of you who are curious…

Every year from the time that I can remember, we made homemade ornaments for the tree. Dough in the oven and paint, using wool, beads, sticks, string – you name it, we’ve made it. Every year, when we would decorate the tree, it was a walk down memory lane. I loved this.

When I moved to Holland in 1998, I bought a huge (by my husbands standards) Christmas tree and hauled it up 4 flights of very steep stairs. I tell you, that when there will, there’s a way! I will never forget the look in his eyes when he saw the monster tree (seriously, by Canadian standards totally average) in “his” living room! It was great!

Course, despite the fact that we didn’t have any kids yet, nor was there talk about ever having any kids, there was a tradition to keep up. So I sat at the table one evening with a mold that my mother had sent me, and started painting my new ornaments – he even joined me and now has a couple of things hanging our tree as well.

Now with my kids, the tradition continues! They love going through the ornaments, love hearing that a couple of them are mine when I was four, five and six, and love thinking about what we’re going to make this year.

Our tree is a mismatch of every color & style. But not only does it looks amazing every single year but it tells the wonderful story of our life!