When our oldest was born, I started a tradition of gifting him an ornament for Christmas. Since then, we’ve had our daughter and I’ve continued this for them for the last three years.
The basis of our tradition isn’t much more than gifting an ornament to our kids, so don’t expect any revolutionary ideas there. But the part that I feel is worth sharing is how this tradition is going to be handled long term.
Besides the fun part of getting a special ornament to put on the tree each year, my wish is that my kids will one day have a collections of ornaments to take with them when they’re ready to move out on their own. They’ll have a nicely packaged kit that is full of memories over the last 18 or more years. They can hang them on their first tree in their first apartment or dorm room. And even one day share the memories with their own spouse and children.
The entire tradition can kind of be broken into a few parts: choosing their ornaments, gifting the ornaments, storing the ornaments with handwritten letters, and then passing their collection of ornaments on in the future.
Choosing an ornament
Choosing the ornament is actually the hardest part of this whole process. It’s not easy to narrow down an entire year into one ornament. I take a little trip to Hobby Lobby by myself and spend the extra time to really look through all their options. As I’m looking, I’m facetiming or sending pictures to my husband for his input and ideas.
I don’t really have any rules when picking out an ornament besides I want it to be fun. I try to find an ornament based on a memory, something they were really into, or a big milestone from that year.
This year, I was able to find Eleanor’s there but I had to order Leo a special one online. Turn out, spooky ghost ornaments aren’t a hot commodity in November.
Gifting the Ornaments
The first part of our tradition is just gifting the ornaments at the beginning of December. I gift them as part of their December 1st box (another new tradition I’m starting this year) and they get to hang them on their tree to enjoy for the rest of the season.
I’m sure Leo and Ellie will be excited to see what I chose for them and every year it’ll be a little treat they look forward to. As the kids get older and their collections grow, I plan to put small trees in each of their rooms so they can have more time to enjoy them.
Simple, huh?
Along with each ornament I do something special. I write a short letter that explains my choice of ornament and a quick ‘I love you.’ This makes the entire gift more sentimental, but it’s also creating a collection of memories that we can look back on every year.
In 20 years I’m not going to remember why I chose a ballet slipper and ghost ornaments in 2022. The letter is a quick way to put those memories into writing for everyone to enjoy for a long time.
Each letter goes inside an envelope and I write the year and what the ornament is. This helps keep everything in order as things will get shuffled around.
Storing the Ornaments
Now onto my favorite part. I am obsessed with how I’m storing my kid’s special ornaments.
When I started this tradition, I didn’t think long term about it. I wasn’t considering what we would do with these ornaments as we accumulated 5, 10, 20+ for each kid. The shoebox they were in was not gonna cut it.
So I decided each kid was going to need their own ornament box to keep everything separated before it got out of hand. This stack and carry box was my favorite option for multiple reasons, but mostly because it’s attractive and can easily hold 18+ ornaments of weird shapes and sizes.
I also wanted to add a little protection for the fragile ornaments so I got some crinkle paper to cushion them and keep everything from sliding around as much. In the photos I only have one bag, but I ended up getting three more so there is much more cushion.
When all the ornaments are packed up in the bin, I just make sure to stack the coordinating ornaments with their letters. The shredded paper helps the pairs from moving around and getting mixed up. But even if they did, no big deal.
For the outside of the box, I made quick labels with my Cricut. Nothing too fancy.
And that’s our ornament tradition! Like I said, it isn’t anything revolutionary. But it makes me really happy and feel fulfilled to know that my kids will have yet another tradition to look back on.
I’m honeslty not a very sentimental person, but the idea of giving years of hand-written letters to my kids does something to my heart. I imagine them being read every year as we decorate the tree and one day their spouses and kids can read the letters too.
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