Ornaments

I know it's after Christmas, but I haven't taken down my tree yet.  Don't tell me if you have (coughAimeecough) because I was really enjoying having it up.  Until we moved into Mike and Karyn's house for the week, and now I just don't have to think about it.

Bear with me, will you?  I want to write about some of my favorite ornaments.  Pretend it's interesting if it's not, because I'm going to do it anyway.  Right after we got married my mom did a sneaky thing and bought us a whole stash of Christmas decorations on clearance at Target.  I love the things they carried that year-- retro glass bulbs in funky colors shaped like icicles, balls, and lights.  We also got a lot of decorations as wedding gifts (for some crazy reason, we got married six days before Christmas).  I love pulling out the decorations because it brings back all sorts of memories of that first Christmas together, which was also our first week as married people. 

Our tree this year, which was generously handed down by Isaac's sister (the one I was coughing at a minute ago, the one who tried to put her tree away ON Christmas):

I don't know why some of these are so blurry... A new camera is definitely on the wish list. 

You see here the fishing Santa that Isaac stole from my aunt and uncle during the white elephant game at the big Christmas party.  I woke up the next morning and found it here:

The beautiful angel we used to have atop the tree, the one that was given to us as a wedding gift by a dear friend of the family, was hiding on the hearth.  (She actually had her face in the corner when I found her!)

My first ornament, all Precious Moments and everything:

The beautiful glittery thing I got at the same white elephant game... I did much better here, obviously...  This one gets memorable status because that game was the funniest thing I've done with my whole extended family in about twenty two years.  Oh wait.

This out of focus bride and groom came from my parents that first Christmas, the one where we came straight from our honeymoon to stay a few days with my parents.  Oy.

 

These lovely carolers were a wedding gift from a family in the ward we grew up in.

From a college spring break trip to San Diego, a miniature Hotel Del Coronado.

This is one of those cheesy Mayan medallions you find all over the Yucatan peninsula-- but it was my first cruise, my first time in the Caribbean, and my first trip with Isaac's family. 

You can't tell, but this jeweled Christmas tree has a miniature wedding portrait in it.  Did I tell that Christmas always makes me think about our wedding?  They are permanently connected in my head.

Isaac came up with this makeshift ornament from my student teaching name badge... I'm still not sure its going back into the box with the other ornaments but at the same time, wow, this thing sure does sum up 2008 for me.  (See my little light bulb ornament?  I love those babies!)

This one I bought this year at the USU Bookstore shortly after commencement .

And I love this one from my mom to commemorate the same day.  (It says 'Class of 2008' on the scroll, you just can't tell because of the flash.  I know pictures are better without the flash, but we live in a basement and we work with limited light.)

These are our very favorite, most treasured Christmas decorations out of everything we own: the matching ornaments we made for our mothers in the first grade, complete with first grade pictures.  You know, when we were in the same class.  You had better believe I nabbed them right back as soon as they were pulled out of the boxes in 2006.  I love looking at that sweet little boy with his buzzed head and crooked grin... makes me fall in love with him all over again, just like I did the first time. 

And finally, it wouldn't be Christmas if Isaac didn't hide the miniature shuttle from the Star Trek Enterprise somewhere in the branches.  You can see it on the right in the picture above.  I'm seeing a theme here: I go for sentimental and beautiful, and he goes for weird.  Surprise.

 

Thanks for enduring through one of those 'journal entry' type posts.  My posterity will be grateful.  Right?