Yup, I’m full of traditions! I didn’t grow up with many traditions and I always felt the lack. I wanted my kids to grow up with traditions that they could look forward to and pass on if they wanted to and would bring back happy memories.

Well I started lots of traditions with my kids and now I’m watching them pass on some of them to their kids, it feels quite rewarding! However as kids grow and grow up some traditions don’t translate and some need modifications. But in order to keep up and give us new connections sometimes we need new traditions.

So a few years ago I started up a new traditions, Christmas ornaments! We rotate holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, so when we’re all together on the Thanksgiving holiday I arrange for us to make an ornament. We all work together, yes, even the guys, and then the names and year get printed on the back. When we are having Christmas together I make the ornaments for everyone, again each has the persons name and the year printed on the back. I figure having a matching ornament bonds us somehow and working on them together bonds us, and when the little ones leave their homes they can take their ornaments with them to start their own tree’s.

Well 2012 was a big year and right before Christmas we had a wedding and it was my year to make all the ornaments. Money was tight, time was a factor, oh what to do?! Well what every good crafter does, look in the box or bin or drawer where you keep all the stuff that you’re sure you’ll be able to find a use for someday. I came up with green and brown felt…..kinda goes with the felt Christmas stockings I have made for everyone, I also found the button box, handed down for 2 generations and added to and subtracted from thousands of times. Then I grabbed a Christmas tree cookie cutter and TA-DA we had a decoration for the year 2012.

Our family has officially doubled this year, we stand at 14, so I made 14 little Christmas tree’s. I had some of the family who could dig through the button box and choose the shapes and colors and patterns to decorate with. Then it was just a matter of some stitches, some stuffing and a name and date. Here are some samples,

some of the trees were just fun and cute, some used really old buttons and had a very old fashioned look about them. Some matched exactly, most didn’t, the only thing that was just alike was the little jingle bell on the top of each tree. I don’t know if these were everyone’s favorites but they all seemed to like them, and I think they turned out really cute.

I have a few ideas for the ornament of 2013, since we will all make them together I have to consider the time it will take and the abilities of those making them. It’s always fun and I think they are all looking forward to seeing what’s next!