Christmas Ornament Tradition

My paternal grandmother started a tradition in the 1970's of making a Christmas ornament each year for every member of our extended family.  Above is my collection of 35 ornaments. 

Below are some of my favorites...

1976 Liberty Bell

1999 Change of Millennium

2002 Painted stone from the creek at our family camp

My grandmother has 6 children, 22 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.  That is 48 ornaments each Christmas!

Craft Room Photos

Here are some updated photos of the craft room.  We've been putting it to good use lately.  Lots of fun holiday projects are created inside these four walls!

Sugar Cookies

I recently purchased a Christmas Cookie Cutter set from Crate & Barrel and decided to put it to use this weekend.  For the cookies, I used Pillsbury Sugar Cookie Dough.  For the icing, I mixed 1 box of powdered sugar with 1/3 cup water to make Royal Icing. 

Christmas Cookie Baking

Each year on the Friday after Thanksgiving, my aunts and cousins get together for our annual Christmas Cookie Baking at my grandmother's house.  This year there were 11 of us and we made 1,758 cookies.  We started at 7am and the first batch was in the oven at 7:37am.

Our official list of cookies included Maizie Taizies (21.5 dozen), Thumbprints (23 dozen), Peanut Blossoms (25 dozen), Buckeyes (30 dozen), and Gobs (39 dozen). Yum, yum, yum!

My uncle surprised everyone this year with hand-carved mini tart shapers for all 6 of the nieces (of which I am one).  They are on display next to the Maizie Taizies below.

Frosty Hot Chocolate

The holidays are such a great time for building family traditions.  One of our favorite things to do at this time of year is to have hot chocolate out of our Frosty the Snowman drink dispenser.

There are two tealights under Frosty's belly that keep the hot chocolate nice and warm.  And you can tuck marshmallows under his hat for topping off your beverage.

Thank You Jar

Here is a fun tradition that our extended family participates in at Thanksgiving.  On November 1st, each family puts out a "Thank You" jar at their house so that family members can drop a note in when they are thankful for something. 

On Thanksgiving day, everyone takes their jar full of notes to my mom's house for our Thanksgiving meal.  After we eat dinner, the notes are combined in one big bowl which gets passed around the table during dessert.  Each family member pulls out a note and reads it aloud to the table until all the notes are gone.  Its a great reminder of what we all are thankful for during the holiday season!

80 Coasters

After drying the flowers from my grandfather's funeral, I was tasked with making 80 coasters for members of our extended family.  My grandfather left behind 6 children, 22 grandchildren, and 19 great-grandchildren. 

He also left behind an amazing legacy.  He was a World War II Army veteran who earned the Purple Heart and came home from the war to marry his high school sweetheart.

My grandparents were married for 62 years and together raised 6 kids on the salary my grandfather made as high school Math teacher.  My grandfather tithed each of his paychecks to his church and was distinguished for voting in every election since 1942. 

My grandfather and I shared the same birthday, which will always remain special to me.  He was truly a member of the Greatest Generation and I was honored to be able to preseve his memory for so many family members by completing this project.

See August 26th Blog entry for more photos.