One my favourite family Christmas traditions is to have each of the children choose a new ornament for the Christmas tree each year. When they were babies we picked the ornament for them, but now they are older they all choose their own. They all get a lot of pleasure hanging their own special ornaments on the tree each year and when they eventually grow up and have homes of their own they will each have a lovely set of meaningful decorations to hang on their own Christmas trees.
This afternoon we went to our favourite garden centre so the Podlings could pick their ornaments for this year. As usual it was Lily who took the longest to choose. The poor girl finds it so hard to make a decision about anything and her agony of decision over something as important as her Christmas decoration can only be imagined! She settled on a very pretty little bird in the end, though she was rather tempted to get a fairy similar to the one Emma chose for a while. Tom is always the quickest to choose. He knows what he likes and he just goes right ahead and gets it. He just wants it in all available colours!
We had a lovely afternoon at the garden centre and we finished off the treat by allowing them some take away fried chicken goodness for tea. My Christmas treat was made complete when Mark presented me with a Starbucks' gingerbread latte...my Christmas tipple! A rather infrequent one given their exorbitant prices, but so tasty I can't resist indulging in the odd one!
After tea, the Podlings hung their new ornaments on the tree before heading to bed. I just love enjoying these Christmas traditions with my family. Christmas is so magical when you have children!
I aspire to owning a Christmas village. They are distressingly expensive sadly!
My sweet boy
Lily with her new ornament
Emma admiring her chosen ornament
Emma chose this sweet fairy and unfortunately insisted on carrying it around the shop. The fairy is rather sturdy, but the wings are made of thick paper and were looking slightly the worse for wear by the time we got her to the till! We have hung her up high as I suspect Emma would spend a great deal of time taking her off the tree to play with otherwise!
Lily chose this pretty glittery bird which has a lovely long tail.
Tom really loved these little glass stars. They were small and inexpensive, so we allowed him to have both the red and the purple one. He is a boy who likes to collect a complete set if a set is available!
Tom's red glass star
Mark bought me this adorable glass fox ornament that I fell in love with. I have named him Rollicum Bitem after the fox in John Masefield's 'The Midnight Folk' which I read for the first time this year. Quite how I managed to get to the age of 35 without reading this charming children's classic I don't know, particularly given my fondness for classic children's literature. Mark bought me a copy of the book this summer and I enjoyed it immensely. I like my ornaments to mean something to me and this one encompasses both my love of literature and my love of the British countryside...he's lovely and even more splendid 'in the flesh'.
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