Christmas Crazy: Ben's Ornament Contribution

HAPPY NEW YEAR! And Merry Christmas.  Yes, this is another post about Christmas.  You're not out of the holiday spirit just yet, are you?  Really? You are?  That's ridiculous.  The three wise men have yet to visit Christ and people have already moved on.  Psh.  In the Ashman household, the tree stays up until at least mid-January.  Partly because of religious tradition, and partly because of laziness.  I'm just not in a hurry to yank all our boxes out of the storage closet, dismantle our fake tree yet, and have to vacuum up the mess that is sure to be on the carpet after embarking on such a mission.  

I'm writing this on the second day of January and the lights are currently lit on the tree.  We gave out our last round of presents on Jan. 1 to Ben's parents and our nieces and nephews due to this year's Christmas scheduling with the families. So it feels like Christmas just happened all over again!  I love it.  Burton's even having a ball with gifts he received from his aunts and uncles yesterday.  We've still got a whole plate of Christmas cookies on the table, and my gift from Ben (a bass guitar) is sort of still in it's packaging under the tree.  AND I only purchased part two of our Christmas present yesterday--two plane tickets to Vegas to celebrate my sister's birthday with my side of the family.  

Yes, Christmas is far from over people. In fact, some might say it's just getting started.  OK, that's probably pushing it.  But you know what I mean.  I'm still feeling festive and merry, and that can only be a good thing I guess.

The real meaning of this post is to follow up on a previous post I did about Ben's and my new Christmas tradition.  As I said before, we're hoping to continue making ornaments for our Christmas tree long into old age. And we're really looking forward to seeing whatever our future children create.  The idea was for it to be a contest, with people we know judging which ornament is best.  If you remember, this was the ornament I submitted:

I created three for our tree because I had three cookie cutters and three pictures that I didn't want to go to waste.

Ok, ready for Mr. Ashman's creation?  Here it is:

Although this was my competition, I have to admit, Ben's ornament is AWESOME.  I think he captured the way we looked on our wedding day perfectly!  I love how creative Ben can be as soon as you turn something into a race.  This really was the perfect ornament for our first Christmas as "smug married" together. hehe.

But alas, it was a competition, and a panel of judges (i.e. my sisters and my mom) said that my ornament was better.  So nice try Ben.  Unless anyone reading this post wants to weigh in on who should be the winner of the first ever Ashman Ornament Showdown, I'll say better luck next time, hubby.  

Anybody else still have their Christmas tree up?