Christmas Ornament Tradition

When our 2 oldest kids were younger, Scott and I started the tradition of letting the boys choose a brand new Christmas ornament for our tree. I had read about it on one of the Christmas forums I was a part of: the thought was that if you bought one each year until your child leaves home, then they'll have their own set of ornaments for their own tree. I thought it was a great idea, considering Scott and I had nothing when we got married and had our first Christmas together.

So every year, after we set up our Christmas tree, we take the kids out to go shopping for their ornaments. Since Christmas stuff starts appearing in the stores around Halloween, I always take notes of any stores that have any ornaments that might interest my kids, but lately, they've always found what they wanted at Target. It's a fun tradition that the kids anticipate and they take really seriously.

Here's this year's choices....

Vanessa fell in love with Sven the moment she saw him. I guess the whole "let it go!" message doesn't apply to her love for all things Frozen!

 Jeff decided on BB-8 from the upcoming Star Wars movie, which he's really excited for!

Ethan is my Star Wars buff, so it was no surprise that he chose a stormtrooper ornament.

Ryan's choice really surprised me, although Vanessa was excited to see him pick Olaf from Frozen. I guess the magical snowman really does appeal to everyone.

Naturally, the kids' sets have grown as they've gotten older, but it's quite exciting to look over the list of ornaments they've collected so far. I'm now in the process of separating their ornaments into separate containers to make it easier to keep track of everything and of course, for storage, but it's proving to be a bit harder to do in the midst of Christmas celebrations.

In the meantime, we'll just enjoy this year's ornaments decorating our tree. :-)