Remember the Good with Christmas Ornaments

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Remember the good with Christmas ornaments! You may have to think about it a little, but your ornament collection can be a time capsule of God’s goodness.

Remember the Good with Christmas Ornaments | Life as Mom

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Many families have the tradition of building an ornament collection for their children, adding a piece each year, so that when adults, the children will have wonderful, memory-tinged baubles for their own Christmas trees. My mom started this for me and my siblings, and we’ve continued the tradition.

It was super fun to look through the ornaments and listen to the kids’ exclamations when we decorated the tree. Our Christmas ornaments are a virtual time capsule of our lives.

It’s been a crazy year. Last year at this time we were coming off the high of selling the Blue House and taking Europe by storm. In 2014 it was exciting to pick out a Christmas ornament to commemorate a well-accomplished year. We corned the market on Eiffel Towers, let me tell you!

This year standing in the Target Christmas section, I was a little stumped for what to choose. It honestly didn’t feel like I accomplished much this year.

(I know, the new book came out, but I didn’t work on that this year; I finished writing it in 2014.)

I decided what I wanted was a butterfly. You know ’cause my butterfly-shaped organ, the thyroid, has pretty much dominated my year. The girls were so perplexed when I started darting through the aisles looking for a butterfly.

Lo and behold, Target had a pretty sparkly butterfly!

It may seem odd to commemorate the year this way. After all, it was devastating back in July and August to learn that my body was rebelling on me. The idea of medications and diet changes and frequent lab work, of being a patient, just sounded sad and dreary.

But you know what? I’m doing okay! My thyroid issues have helped me to appreciate my life a lot more. They’ve also brought me closer to a cousin, helped me grow in compassion to others, and made me joyful in ways that I could never have imagined.

So that old thyroid has had some hidden blessings as well as hardships. I plan to keep it for as long as I can. And my little butterfly ornament will remind me of the God’s goodness to me in a hard time.

Do YOU remember the good with Christmas ornaments?

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9 Comments

  1. My husband’s family did this for him throughout his childhood so he has quite a collection. We’ve decorated our tree with all of his ornaments every year since we’ve gotten married, but this year I had finally had enough. We have two small children with their own ornaments, and I want to be able to hang ornaments for them, or just something pretty. He picked a few favorites to hang, but everything else stayed in their boxes. It’s made me decide NOT to collect ornaments for our kids!

    1. Well, is it the collection or the fact that you didn’t build on the collection with your own experiences together? For me, most of mine stay in the box, but I choose different ones each year to display. The ones that are the most important to me are the ones I’ve chosen during our marriage.

  2. What a beautiful encouragement. In the last couple of years I have let the annual ornament idea slide, but I’ll give it a little thought over the next couple of days and see if fits into my changing approach to the holiday season 🙂

      1. Jessica,
        Our, my approach to the holidays has been simpler the last couple of years. Mostly this is due to weariness, as my hubby’s work schedule is challenging to all of us. I also noticed that some of the ornaments we had bought our kiddos over the years were not “favorites” as they grew older.

        This season I did get an idea that turned out great! As I was wrapping some gifts I found a simple silver bow ornament in my ribbons & bows tin that coordinated with the wrapping paper. Using a metallic ribbon I tied the ornament onto the gift. I loved the way it looked! One day I popped into Pier One looking for something else and found some pretty wire ball ornaments in silver, red and bronze that I purchased and used as gift tags. The packages were beautiful and my kids each got a couple of inexpensive pretty ornaments to add to their collection. Happy New Year!

  3. We never set out to collect ornaments, but over the years my daughters have received many as gifts. We write on the box the year, the occasion for the gift and who gave the gift. We have so much fun decorating the tree each year and reading these notes on the boxes. The oldest ornament in our collection is a rocking horse I bought in 1978 with my own money with proceeds from my first “real” job in high school.

  4. We do this too. Hubby and I started doing ornaments the year before we got married. Some years the boys all get the same thing, like if we take a big vacation or have a major life event. Usually it’s tailored to something they did during the year. For my oldest this year I got him an ornament with India on it because he was able to take a trip with my husband this summer and it was a life changing event for him.