A Christmas Tradition for the Ages

All families have really neat traditions for Christmas.  For instance, in my family, we watch Muppet Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve and exchange a homemade gift for our "Secret Santa."  Evan's family has two traditions that we'll definitely be using in our household: they have a pizza party dinner on Christmas Eve (which to me sounds much less stressful than the woman having to stress over a dinner the entire day) AND his Mom has given each child an ornament every single year of their life.  When they get married, she gives them their collection of ornaments.  So on our tree, we have 22 ornaments that she bought him: one for each year of his life before the wedding.  We definitely plan on doing this with our children.  She already bought Liliana one last year (an ornament for when she was still in Mommy's belly) and this year for her first Christmas.

This tradition had me thinking about how much our Christmas tree means to me.  We have so many ornaments on there that make me laugh, cry, remember, and rejoice.  For this blog post, I've decided to show our favorite 10 ornaments on the tree.  I had Evan choose his favorite 5 and then I chose my favorite 5.  One of them happened to overlap, but I suppose that's to be expected.

 Our tree.  I like our snowman tree topper.  

Normally when we're not taking pictures, we open the windows so people can see the lights!

Cristina's Favorite Five (in no particular order)

 Someone wrapped our wedding present with this ornament tied up top.  It has the date of our wedding. 

It's such a gorgeous ornament!

That picture is of me when I was 15 months old with my Daddy.  

I want to take a picture of Evan with Liliana next to poinsettias next year.

This ornament brings tears to my eyes.  It fits on our tree perfectly. 

This is my brother Carlos that passed when I was 7.

This is the ornament that Evan's Mom bought for Liliana last year when she was in my belly.

As you guys know, I LOVE Texas A&M (Class of 2007! WHOOP!).  

We have about 30 Aggie ornaments on the tree, so I HAD to put one of them on the top 5.

 

Evan's Favorite Five Ornaments (in no particular order)

 This is Evan's first ornament that his Mom bought him.  It's so cute.

Evan chose the wedding one too.  Can't blame him.

Last year, I made Evan a homemade ornament for every year we had been together.  In this ornament, I wrote the lyrics to the Spirit of Aggieland (one of the many fabulous songs we sing at Aggie football games).

Evan's Mom has given them quite a few Santas as their yearly ornament over the years and he loves them all, but settled on including this one in to the top 5.

Sigh...yes...he chose this one. 

It's supposed to be the antenna topper on your car but he wanted it to be an ornament.  Boys...

Remember, the holiday season isn't over until Three Kings Day (we celebrate that big time in Puerto Rico), so ...

Happy Holidays!