Friday, December 10, 2010

Christmas Tree Ornaments

This weekend we head back down to San Diego for an early Christmas with the Brady Family. Then the following weekend we're leaving for our long trip to Illinois and Seattle. AND as soon as we get home, we're going to turn around and leave again to head to San Diego for the Holiday Bowl!! I know that at this point San Diego hardly feels like traveling, but darn it it's not home and we do cool stuff there. Needless to say, the coming weeks are going to be full of adventures! I promise to (try) to take pictures of more than just my adorable nieces and nephew... but I can't guarantee that will happen because the truth is I am completely smitten with them! Being an auntie is truly awesome. I love watching my brothers and sisters-in-law be amazing parents and I love getting to be a part of their children's lives. I guess that just means they will dominate my picasa albums!

In the meantime, we've been busy around here doing a tiny bit of decorating and enjoying what little of December we have in our little apartment. We managed to get a tree into our itsy bitsy living room and even found a few inches of wall space to "hang" our stockings.
Our stockings... hung precariously right there. 

Every year Mark and I buy a new ornament to add to our collection. Our very first Christmas together was in 2004 in a drafty old rental house in Lake City (a neighborhood in Seattle.) We only had about 10 hand-me-down ornaments between us which we had tricked our moms into giving us, so we went to Fred Meyer and bought the cheapest set of ornaments in a box we could find. We decided to splurge and buy ONE nice ornament from Hallmark that said "2004" on it. You could stick a picture in it so we stuck a cute little pic of our new kitties. Mr. Finnigan is so little in this picture!

2004

The following year, 2005, was our first year in California. We were desperately missing the snow and the ski season and feeling the full force of grad school and our decision to pack up everything and change our life forever. When we bought our second ornament, our "buy one ornament a year" became an official tradition.

2005

In 2006, we got engaged and I/we bought Mark his MR2. (RIP deuce) When I saw this Santa holding a little car, we both thought it was perfect for our year!

2006


This is our 2007 ornament. I think we just picked it because we liked it but the truth is that it's very representative of how the year felt for us!

2007

In 2008 I was in grad school right along with Mark. This is the year that I became a teacher, and it is also the year that Mark started teaching at the collegiate level as well. How could we pass this ornament up?

2008
2009 was the first year we started to believe that grad school might actually end someday. We found this ornament at CostPlus and I think we picked it just because we liked it. It looks peaceful.

2009

And finally, our ornament for this year!

2010
While in the UK, we searched and searched for a very cool Cambridge ornament. Nothing could top this adorable Harrods bear from London though. We still bought a little keychain from Cambridge which we hung on our tree, but this little guy is our official 2010 ornament. I'm so glad we got a tree this year for his debut!

2010 on our tree

Do you have any traditions that you started as an adult? Mark and have several other traditions that are family traditions that we've kept, but this one is one that we started on our own and look forward to continuing. My Aunt and Uncle are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. When Mark and I get there, our whole tree will be filled with very special and meaningful ornaments!