Christmas Ornament Tradition

 have always loved the idea of traditions. I think it gives people a sense of belonging and security.  Of course, not all traditions are fabulous. I had an uncle who always greeted me with the dreaded "pull my finger".  Good grief!!! I think we can all agree with getting rid of that tradition! Oh, brother!!!

Of course, my vision of traditions is more on the lovely side of things... For instance, while we were dating, my husband and I picked up a personalized Christmas ornament. We weren't even engaged but I thought it was kinda cool and his tree needed some serious help. Little did I know that very same Christmas, he would ask me to be his wife.  Since that Christmas, we've purchased an ornament every year to put on our tree. As time progressed, we started picking an ornament which reflected something that happend during the year. Maybe an ornament from our summer vacation or a house ornament to signify the purchase of our home. As our family grew, I then started collecting a hubby and wife ornament, a family ornament, and an ornament for each child. The ornaments now had a story behind them and to save those stories I decided to create a scrapbook of my Christmas ornaments. It's a very quick and easy project. Who doesn't like that? Here's what I do... I take a photo of each ornament, add it to my Ornament Album, and then journal the story behind the ornament (the reason why I bought or made it). That's it! Task completed. Yippee!

My Ornament Album contains only photos and stories of our family ornaments. Here's what mine looks like:

The album is an 8x10 Creative Memories album which is no longer available. The size suits me just fine and I've got enough pages and page protectors to last me for another 60 years! I can usually fit each year's ornaments on one page with enough room for journaling.

Here's the cover page. I did this page many, MANY, MANY years ago. It's interesting to see how my scrapbooking style has evolved over the years. In scrapbooking, I'm a firm believer in once it's done, it's DONE! I would never redo a page because there are so many pages yet to be completed for the 1st time.

Here's a sample of what some of my pages look like. The pages were never meant to be fancy but to focus in on the story behind each oranment.

I've also decided that when each child finally marries, I will hand over all their ornaments so that they can grace their own tree. My hope is that they will carry on this tradition with their family too.

Credo,
Lisa