Thursday Thirteen #19 - Favorite Christmas ornaments

Thirteen Things about my favorite Christmas ornaments! Over the years I've collected many Christmas ornaments. Unfortunately the ones I had collected when I was a kid got lost, probably in one of my many post-college moves. But I've collected quite a few since then and thought I'd share a few (well, 13) of my favorites: This little mill (sorry it's blurry, but it's very small) was part of a Hallmark Keepsake ornament series. I have the mill and one other ornament from the series. I think this was one of the oldest ones that I still have. I discovered Thomas Kinkade's artwork over 10 years ago and have a couple of ornaments - this one is my favorite. A friend made this one as a wedding gift. It has our names and our wedding date on it. After I got married, my mom let me have all of our ornaments from when I was a child - not the ones I lost (those were specifically mine), but the ones that were on our tree every year while I was growing up. I don't have any of those out this year (breakable ornaments + kitten + toddler), but I did put this one out - my mom made it one year when she took a macrame class. She made two of them and I have both. I love snowmen! I don't remember exactly when I bought this little guy, but I like his sign that says, "Flakes Welcome!". Even if I don't necessarily agree with it. :) This one's hard to see (sorry!) but it says "Parents-to-be 2000" on it. It was a Christmas gift from my friend Kristi in 2000 when I was pregnant with Abby. This is Hannah's first ornament - the bell is engraved with "Baby's First Christmas 2002". And the bell does really ring. I like to buy ornaments when I travel. Usually I can find something with the name of wherever I'm visiting on it, but on a trip to Minneapolis I couldn't find anything I liked. So I bought this little guy at the Mall of America - I figured that a snowman (even if he looks like he's made out of marshmallows) pretty much sums up Minnesota anyway, LOL. Another snowman - I have a lot of these! :) The year that Hannah was born, I figured we needed a 'family' ornament, so I bought this one. I think it's probably about time we got a new one with Becca on it... I used to get these ornament frames from Sears when we had our pictures taken every year. But they stopped carrying them a few years ago and I've never found a good substitute. I loved this way to commemorate every Christmas and the girls love seeing their photos hanging from the tree. This is one of my favorite Christmas photos of the girls, from 2004. We only have a few ornaments so far that they girls have made at school, but Abby made this one in preschool and it's definitely one of my favorites. This is Becca's first ornament. :) I'm looking forward to adding to my collection of favorite ornaments over the years! Links to other Thursday Thirteeners:

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