As we hung ornaments on the tree, there were ones I painted when I was little, and many my mom made for us through the years. Of course, I also have the wonderful ornaments made by the kids, and all together, it makes for a lot of original artwork on my tree. I will never have a tree that all matches or has a color scheme, it will always be filled with mis-matched ornaments made with love.
As I was hanging up the kids stockings, I looked at them in awe all over again. My mother in law made each one ( in counted cross stitch) for them when they were born. It took her a year to complete each one, and with every single stitch she added such love and devotion to her family. I can't imagine a better gift for my babies first Christmas.
These are some little wooden toy soldiers that my dad cut out and my mom painted......
And here again, are some Santa's that my mother in law painted in ceramics. I just love that she really handpicked ones that reflected things Justin and I love. One has bird houses on his coat with birds, and another is a hippie santa with peace signs. She also made us the tree with the little lights. Such love goes into these things. The wooden angel was made by my parents. They were such a team. Mom would draw her plans, dad would cut it out for her and she would paint it! Every year it was something new.
My mom made the wreathe below as well. She actually started her creative journey doing flower arrangments. I got to be alongside her as she took her journey through each and every art form and craft she learned. (that is where my passion for art was born!)
The Star of Bethlehem that is hanging from the ceiling was from my best friends mom our first Christmas after we got married, and is handmade as well.
I guess sometimes I forget how drenched my life is with creativity. I forget how meaningful handmade can be. These things mean more to me then anything I've ever bought. They were made with love. They were made for my family. What more can I say?
How about you? Any favorite decorations or handmade items you'd like to share about this holiday season?
7 comments:
My favorites are hand made and also ones I've collected when travelling - it's all about memories
Ann
Great post, Staci. These are the things that make Christmas more special. We've got things like my kid's (he's 20 now) macaroni and glue ornaments from preschool, and fancy sequin and ribbon trimmed balls that my husband made in boy scouts. My grandmother (now gone) went through a ceramics phase too and I have the kissing angels figurines that she painted too. I treasure opening the storage boxes every year.
My owl tree... =)
Christmas and any holiday is so much more special when we have things that are handmade with love that we are able to treasure and pass down. My mom has passed on many of the ornaments that we treasured as a family as children and now I have them to decorate my tree! It's actually sort of fun since she passed on and distributed all the funky weird handmade stuff to us which we all love and said, "now that you're all out of the house, I want a PRETTY tree!!!! and I want it to be burgundy and gold with white pretty lights!!!!"
Little did she know that we would start gifting her pretty ornaments that were burgundy, pretty, and gold that matched her tree....haha! The kids got the last laugh!!!!!
Sadly, I lost all of our ornaments when our house flooded in 2006. It was probably one of the things that hit me hardest. I've been buying a couple of handmade ones each year since. And my sister that year, tied 2-3 handmade ornaments on all mine and my husbands gifts that year. (it was funny.. she wrapped several small things separately so she'd have more packages to tie ornaments on) Family and memories make Christmas SO special, and there are so many memories tied to our handmade treasures!! Great post Staci!!
That was a wonderfully touching post. I started making all of my gifts 7 years ago when I realized that I was not doing my teenagers any favors when I realized that they did not have any respect for all of the material commercial possessions they owned. Long story.... another chapter, Staci ;o) and they have grown to appreciate that I will give them something I've made and sometimes other artists have made. It's also made the holidays more enjoyable for me as well.
MaryAnn
this is so very true... we have all of those little ornaments as well - from the egg cups covered in glitter to more 'sophisticated' handmade things... it is fun, isn't it? that we get to visit these things each and every year? my mom made our stockings as well and now my kids use them...
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