Merry Christmas From My House

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Today marks the 25th Christmas I've spent with my darling husband Jim.  Wow.  That's a long time!  Through the years we've added four children to our family. Now they're almost all grown up!  Here they are playing a competitive game of Settlers of Catan on Christmas Eve.

Left to right:  Aaron, 13; Rachael, 23; Chelsea, 20; Ben 17
(You can also see my husband Jim sitting in the living room)

All of my children gave me picture ornaments when they were little.  I think something similar would make a great gift for birth parents and birth grandparents.

Aaron, 3rd grade.

Rachael, 2nd grade.

Chelsea, 1st grade

Ben, 3rd grade.

The first Christmas Jim and I were married, we made an angel for the tree top using a fashion doll purchased from the dollar store.  She faithfully stood up top until just a couple of years ago.  We decided to give her a rest, so now she gets to sit back comfortably.

Below is our newest angel.  I picked her up at a thrift store a couple of years ago.  

I love her.  I want to be her!

Here's some more of my favorite ornaments:

The Thai reindeer hung on the Christmas tree of my childhood.  My parents traveled to Thailand when I was 11, and brought home four reindeer, one for each of their children.  

Santa is excited to have such a fancy reindeer!

Christmas Cow

Paddington Bear

I fell in love with a swan as a newlywed.  Quite scandalous, I know.  Jim and I purchased him during an after-Christmas sale.  We were too poor to buy him before Christmas

Rachael  did an internship on the Navajo nation after her freshman year of college, and brought back this handmade Navajo couple.

I asked my children what their favorite ornaments are. 

Ben's likes the one Grandma Bakaitis gave him for his very first Christmas in 1994.

Chelsea likes the Campbell's Soup kid in the moon.  

We have a large collection of Campbell's kids ornaments given to us by Jim's dad.  

 Rachael loves this blown glass ornament made at Greenfield Village in Detroit, MI.  

Aunt Marlene Davis used to volunteer there.

Aaron favors the fixer elf.
He's busy moving about our tree, repairing any lights that might go out .
The elf used to fix Jim's tree when he was growing up in Detroit, but now he works for us.

Yes, we adoptees grow up and have families of our own, and then our children grow up.  We cherish positive Christmas memories from our childhood, and we also create new traditions.    

Have a very Merry Christmas everyone!