How lovely are thy branches!

I am a sentimental decorator when it comes to Christmas. It is a tradition in our family that we get an ornament every year for Christmas. When we get married my mom passes those ornaments on to us for our tree. I love pulling out each one and remembering the year it was given to me.

This lovely gem of an ornament was given to me the year I was born. Do you see what I mean? You would have to be sentimental to keep this. (The bad photography doesn’t help much, does it?)

The ornaments that remind me of what was going on in my life at the time always make me emotional. This was from my mom last year, in honor of our first Christmas in our first house. What a special memory.

These two ornaments aren’t gifts, but have equal sentimental value. I remember as a child I loved putting the ornaments on our tree that my parent’s had made for their first Christmas tree. So, after Brandon and I got married I was super excited to get some ornaments that we could remember as our first. Being in the thick of my first concert season ever as a music teacher, handmade didn’t happen. I love what we chose from Terry’s Village, though. The heart is one of 12 ornaments that are part of an old German tradition. I’m not German and didn’t even know about the tradition until I saw the ornaments in the catalog, but I thought it was pretty nifty, so I decided to join in on the fun! The snowmen are just cute. William loved putting them on the tree this year.

What kind of tree decorator are you? Do you have any favorite ornaments?

Go read this post on my craft blog, Toodles. I’m hosting my first giveaway!