Christmas Crazy: Traditions and the Ornament Contest

This is Ben's and my FIRST CHRISTMAS TOGETHER!  It's not our first time exchanging gifts or being with each others' families but it's our first Christmas as Ashmans.   As in, our first Christmas as our own "Ashman" family unit.  Alright, enough of that.  I've driven the point home pretty well I think.  We just got married, so there's a lot of firsts and...probably overly mushy moments. But whatever! This is my blog. It's partly about my relationship for goodness sake, hence the blog name.

ANYHOO, it's our first X-mas. And if you read the last Christmas Crazy post you'd know I'm obsessed with Christmas. It's my favorite holiday of the year.  And I think my family likes Christmas just as much.  We have a bunch of family traditions that we like to keep going every year. So I thought, well Ben and I are a family.  But we don't have any traditions yet!  Enter, the "make your own ornament" contest.  Ben's and my Christmas tree has a good amount of ornaments on it.  We have red and gold bulbs (in honor of our Chiefs football team), some angel ornaments, six or seven cat ornaments that I purchased from World Market, a Princess Tiana ornament that we received from Ben's best man, and a new ornament we bought on our mini-moon in Sedona.  

But besides collecting ornaments from places we visit (I can't wait to see what we bring home from Vegas and Greece next year!), I thought we could take it back to elementary school. Remember when you were like six or seven years old and your teacher said the class was going to make ornaments to give to our parents?  So you got a piece of construction paper and scribbled some nonsense on it, maybe tried to fold it and make it look all unique and stuff.  And maybe you added a school photo of yourself, you know, for creativity and cuteness.  Then you'd give it to your parents on Christmas and they'd  be like "Awwww!"  And if your parents were MY parents, that ornament ended up in the trash with the rest of the torn up wrapping paper.  If you were Ben's parents, they might have actually kept that ornament for years and years and years a look upon it fondly when it hangs on the tree.  

Well, I'm hoping to be the latter. This Christmas is the first year that Ben and I agreed to each make an ornament for our Christmas tree, then have a third party choose which one is the best for a prize to be determined at a later date.  I don't know if it's really a contest.  But it was the only way I could get Ben to agree to forming the tradition with me.  So, whatever.  The goal is to do this every year just us, until we have children old enough to use their fingers, then the kids will join in on the fun, making a new ornament each year.  I haven't met my kids yet and Ben and I don't know when they'll get here (next year, in 10 years, who knows), but I already can't wait to see what they come up with for the tree! 

Here are my offerings for this year's "contest:"

My ornaments are a riff on these lovely Martha Stewart ones.  The photos are our engagement photos.  I doubt I'll get tired of looking at these hanging on the tree every year.  Especially when Ben and I are old and getting fat and graying.  Every Christmas we'll have a reminder of how hot we used to be.  SIGH.  

Anyways, here's to Christmas and OUR family traditions.  

Last mushy note of the day:  Ben and I have officially been married for more than half a year.
Our six month-iversary was Dec. 15.  And so far, marriage has been incredibly awesome.