Christmas tree of memories, an update

In December 2016, I shared photos of some of the ornaments on my tree, along with a little history behind each. If interested, you can read that post here. Today, I'm sharing others—a few old favorites and some new ones.  

I bought the first group of ornaments at a craft show many years ago. All four are hand painted on wood by a local artist.

My siblings and I lost Daddy at the age of 93 in 2019. We lost Mama at the age of 89 this past April. My sister Jennifer made these two ornaments in their memory. The green felt on the back side of Mama’s ornament is made from one of the bags that held her ashes. Jennifer took that bag of ashes back to Florida and scattered them off the pier Mama loved to fish from in Daytona Beach.

Mama made these ceramic ornaments many years ago, and I added the photos. The one on the left contains a photo of my two sons Kevin and Chris. The one on the right contains a photo of my in-laws, Earl and Mary (Athya) Murphy.

My brother made these stained-glass ornaments. I bring a few home every time I visit him.

I have come to love Hallmark’s Beauty of Birds series so now buy a new one each Christmas.

In this photo, you see another bird ornament as well as a snowflake crocheted by my sister. 

I have many white snowflakes crocheted by Mama. Before Covid, she started using red thread.

When cleaning Mama's house out this spring, we found a box of ceramic ornaments she had poured, cleaned and fired. My brother took them home and painted them. He gave these to me when I went back home in the fall.

Jennifer is a very crafty person, and this year started painting. This ornament is her take on a Little Debbie Christmas cake.

I continue to add to my White House collection. I love the gingerbread house this year. It even came with a recipe.

This Sikorsky H-34 helicopter, part of the White House Historical Association’s White House Christmas ornament series, isn’t one of my favorites but my husband likes it. When I met Charlie, he worked for Secor, who was bought out by Sperry, who merged with Burroughs and became Unisys. Then Charlie’s division broke off to become Paramax, and then was reabsorbed by Unisys one to two years later. Then again Charlie’s division was sold to Loral, who was eventually sold to Lockheed Martin. Charlie worked 42 1/2 years as an electrical draftsman and engineer at the same job during all of these changes. Seventeen of those years were with Lockheed, followed by five years as a contractor for Lockheed so he proudly hangs this ornament on our tree.  

My daughter-in-law added this red edition Swarovski crystal to my collection, and I added the 2022 edition. This continues a tradition that’s been going on since at least 2007. 

As I said in 2016, these family treasures are all special to me and I can't wait to hang them every year. I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!