....well, this year we went patriotic. Red, blue, and silver. David and I have been missing home quite a bit these last few months.My mother started collecting ornaments from all the places we visited, and it's a tradition that David and I have also adopted. It's a great way to commemorate all the places we've visited and to bring home a memento from each country or city without having to resort to some tacky little knick-knack. Of course, some places we've visited haven't had ornaments so we've had to improvise with some. I wrote little blurbs about when and where we purchased each ornament, so when we unwrap them to put them on the tree, we read the story and reminisce about all our many wonderful adventures together. Here are a few of my favorites (sorry, some of these aren't great photos):
Teddy bear from the National Museum of American History. We have several ornaments from my days in D.C. but I had to buy one to represent my tenure at the Smithsonian.
George Washington's Windsor chair from Mt. Vernon. For one of my projects in grad school (a museum exhibition for my public history class), I created an exhibit all about Windsor chairs, one of the most ubitiquous and longest lasting chair designs in history. (You see them everywhere. They're still manufactured today.) I love Windor chairs and so I had to buy this ornament to proclaim my devotion.
Jade carving from China. Not surprisingly, we couldn't find a proper Christmas ornament in China. So David and I bought this jade piece as a subsitute ornament. It's one of our more expensive ornaments. :-)
The white egg-shaped ceramic ornament was purchased at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, America's premier museum of decorative arts and Dream Job #2 (#1 being the Smithsonian, of course). The gold one was purchased at a Buddhist temple in Taiwan. Normally, patrons buy the trinket as a sort of prayer for themselves or someone else. They write the name of person on it and then hang it somewhere on the temple grounds. David and I asked if we could buy one and take it home with us which the man selling them said we could, so now it's our Christmas ornament from Taiwan.
This ornament, from Shenandoah National Park (gorgeous place, by the way) was one of the first ornaments that David and I bought together, before we were officially engaged.
This is our makeshift Korean ornament from Seoul Tower. It's really supposed to be one of those decorations you stick on a window or something but it works just as well as an ornament.
Purchased in Georgia, naturally, at Stone Mountain. I consider the Confederate flag an emblem of America's past (and don't see it as a symbol of racism) and well, David's from the South. He still calls everyone else Yankees.
This is from Volcanoes National Park from the Big Island of Hawaii. We purchased this on our honeymoon.
And this adorable little sea otter is from Monterey, where David and I met. Of all the places I've lived, Monterey is one of my absolute favorites. I'd move back there in a heartbeat if we could actually afford it.
Zara is getting excited for her first Christmas. Here she is modeling her new Christmas dress and Christmas outfit.
Okay, so she really has no idea what Christmas is or when it's coming, but it's still fun nonetheless. I can't wait until she's a bit older and can really get excited for it. It's fun to carry on old family traditions (like eating pizza on Christmas Eve) and to create our own new ones.
