Ornament a year . . .

My husband and I had our first date on December 8, 2002 meaning, as of Saturday, we'll have been together for 10 years! Yay us! :)

Because I was working full time as a flight attendant and part-time at a Christian bookstore when we met we didn't have a lot of time to spend together in the beginning, especially since the holidays are a notoriously busy time in the airline industry and he'd already made travel plans for the last 2 weeks of December.

The first thing my husband invited me to was his company Christmas party, which was supposed to be our first date.  Because there were about 10 days between the time he invited me to the party and the day it was scheduled, we ended up going out to dinner once in between.   With our conflicting schedules around Christmas and New Year's Eve we had known that after the weekend of his work party we wouldn't see each other until after the 1st of the year.

After one of our first two dates we were in my apartment and I was showing him the ornaments I had for my first ever tree (This was the first time I'd ever lived alone, without roommates).  All of the ornaments on my tree were ones given to me by relatives when I was a kid or by friends when I was in high school and college and I told him the story of each one.

Because he knew he would be gone for a scheduled visit to his parents' house for Christmas and then a previously scheduled New Year's Eve party at his best friend's house out of town my (now) husband left my Christmas gift with the mutual friend who had introduced us.

After only two dates this was the first ever gift my husband bought me:

After we became engaged in September, 2003 he showed me this ornament he bought at the same time he bought the first one

Needless to say a tradition was born pretty quickly :)
 
Interestingly enough, just a few days after I had set up our tree in 2005 we found out we were expecting our oldest so we have an ornament to mark that occasion, too.  When I went to Target to buy a confirmatory pregnancy test I also picked up an ornament that was a gift box that opened.  I put a note inside with the date and saying we got our present early that year in finding out we're going to become parents.  I also bought a gender neutral stocking ornament that day.   I will take pictures of those and add them to this post later.

Every year I buy an ornament that represents my husband and I and one for each of the kids.  Starting at about age 2 I let the kids pick their own out.  Some of their choices have surprised me, but I love hearing their reasons why.  I stick a note in the ornament box saying who picked out the ornament and why so I'll always remember.

My favorite part of decorating the tree each December is pulling out the ornaments and taking a trip down memory lane.   Here are a few of my favorites:



After my husband were pronounced "husband and wife" at our wedding we left the church for our reception to Smashmouth's rendition of I'm a Believer from the movie Shrek.

This was my husband's boutonnier from our wedding inside a plastic ornament ball I'd bought at Michael's