Christmas Tradition: Ornaments

My family doesn't have a ton of traditions and most of the ones we do have involve cooking/eating food of some sort - Daddy's special, chocolate covered cherry cookies (to die for), chocolate lady finger pudding (look for these recipes later in the month).  One of the traditions that we do have that I love, love, love is collecting ornaments.  Ok, collecting ornaments at Christmas time is probably not so unique, but I love the tradition my mom started when we were kids.  This tradition started during the post-divorce phase that I fondly refer to as "Vacation Wars." Seriously, 2 kids who'd never been anywhere more exotic than Tennessee are, within an 18 month time span, taken to NYC (mom), on a cruise (dad), to London (mom - and that's a really cool story about how my mom saved all of her change in one of those big 5 gallon water jugs and after we rolled coins for months - this is pre-Coinstar- we had $1500 which was enough for tickets  to London for 3), and finally to Vail (dad - but also we had a free place to stay).

My mom had us start collecting ornaments from the different places that we'd been.  We didn't start this until the London trip, so we missed a few trips early on, but we have 3 little beefeater guys to represent England.  And every year, when we hang the ornaments, we tell our favorite stories from those different travels.  For instance, with the beefeaters, we talk about how Michelle and I hated British food (duh!) and really only wanted to eat at Burger King, and how at the tourist attractions we really just wanted to rush through to the gift shops, and how Michelle got car sick on the bus to Windsor Castle and we had to get off before even leaving London and I missed my chance to see a castle (umm...until I studied in London in college and then traveled Europe and saw about a million castles).  

Here's a glimpse at some of the ornaments that I've collected on my travels in recent years and what they remind me of.  

This little birdie is from Bangladesh.  I went there with work in the Spring of 2010 to visit our workers.  Fun story, my boss took me on a "short, little hike" to a remote little village where I almost died from dehydration.  That might be a slight exaggeration.  Slight.  Fun times.  Really, it was great to meet the amazing people who are ministering there, though. 

This one might be kind of hard to see, but it's a little filigree heart with a cross inside from Nepal.  Fun Nepal memories - 16 hours on the night bus (ha, ha, ha that was so horrible, so very, very horrible).  The first time I got altitude sickness.  The first time I rode on top of a bus.  Seeing Mt Everest.  A-mazing.

I bet you can guess where this one is from!! :)  Although I don't know why the kangaroo is making the Home Alone face.  My favorite thing about Australia?  New Zealand.  I know that doesn't quite make sense, but New Zealand is so amazing and everyone is sooooo nice there.  Australia is amazing, though. A wonderful, wonderful friend parted with some frequent flier miles so I could come visit for 3 weeks and we took a little holiday in New Zealand.  Christchurch, because it was the cheapest place to fly to.  We spent one day on an island filled with vineyards going on a wine tasting tour.  And another day was spent on an active volcano island.  Something cool actually from Australia?  The zoo is amazing!  Platypuses are pretty much the coolest animals ever.  And the kangaroo enclosure?  Oh yeah, you walk right in and just hang with the kangaroos.  

It's William Shakespeare!!! Direct from Stratford-Upon-Avon.  I studied/worked abroad in London in college.  I took two classes:  The British Novel...on Film (read a book, watch a movie - awesomeness!) and, um, Survey of British Theater (where you go see a play each week and write a little paper on it).  I did also have an internship where I worked for RNLI - the Lifeboats.  It's ROYAL charity.  Kate & Wills' first event as an engaged couple was launching one of the lifeboats.  British people get really excited when they hear I worked for RNLI since Americans typically know nothing about it.  

So this little heart is totally from IKEA, but it's from IKEA in Chengdu.  My first IKEA adventures were all in China.  And I brought this one little guy back with me.  Ah, those sweet, sweet trips to Chengdu - with IKEA, and Pete's Tex-Mex, and Papa Johns. 

Yay!!  This is my Mele Kalikimaka hula girl from Maui.  I've been a lot of places, like 24 countries or something, but Hawaii just might be my favorite place.  Love it.  Love it so much. Love the 5 pools interconnected with slides (slides!!!), love the ladies who bring those yummy drinks around in the afternoon, love the breakfast buffet.  And love the sweet, sweet friend who redeemed frequent flier miles to fly me out there, pay for our hotel, and get the rental car.  

So those are the recent ones.  Some of the particularly awesome ornaments are still at my mom's and go on the family tree there.  And by awesome, I mean things like the Chicago Bulls Christmas bulb I picked out Christmas of "92 because I was obsessed with Scottie Pippen and the Bulls for like 5 months following the Barcelona Dream Team Olympics.  Those pictures/stories will have to wait until I'm home for the holidays.  :)