My Ornaments have meaning

So it's Christmas Eve and I decided I would would stick with my weekly theme about ornaments and share my thoughts on themed trees with you. I recently was with a group of ladies and we were discussing our Christmas trees and all the ornaments on them. There were all different kids of "themed" trees being talked about. Some ladies had the traditional red and gold theme, and others mentioned the more modern blue and silver, and then you have my tree- the hodgepodge tree. As I grew up, decorating the tree was a family event. My Dad would help get the tree up and my Mom, sister, and I would decorate it. We always would put the rather interesting ornaments in the back and the pretty ones up front for all to see. Doesn't everyone do that? Well not me anymore, my tree is on a revolving stand so you see them all. :) My Mom always let us decorate the tree however we wanted. She would include all our lovely school made ornaments too. Actually she still puts those on her tree today. She and My Dad made wood ornaments on their first Christmas 33 years ago and they still hang them on their tree. I think that is so neat, talk about a tree and ornaments with meaning. How could a "themed" tree be more beautiful than that? I hear these ladies discussing how perfect their tree looks, and yes when I see them they look like they could be in a Christmas edition of Southern Living. I guess if I had a bigger house I would have me a "show" tree and always have my hodgepodge tree too. You see most of my ornaments have a meaning. I just thought I would share a few of those with you...
Each year that we have taken a cruise we buy these ship ornaments. They have the names of the cruise ships on them. This reminds us of all our cruises and where all we have been so blessed to visit. We have so many memories on these ships!
When we travel we buy an ornament so that we can remember our fun times that we have shared together at that particular place. Here is the Statue of Liberty. We have been to NYC several times.

To remind us of our trip to Cape Code~ we went to Boston and Martha's Vineyard too.

Well this one says it all. Our trip to Belize. We snorkeled in the Barrier Reef.

Obviously~ this is our vacation ornament from this year~Alaska . We went whale watching!

This was bought to remind us of our under water snorkeling adventures in the Virgin Islands.

OK so not all my ornaments are vacation memories~ this one is because I worked as a Pretzel girl at the baseball stadium in High School for 4 years. How funny is that one!

This one is for Samson~ he had been so sick that year!

Each year I try and be crafty and make some ornaments too. As you have seen this year I have done several things with the glass balls. I also have made the fabric balls and I make a wooden ornament and paint it every year too. Here is one of those from the past years.

And the Ornament with the most meaning of all... this one reminds us all what the true meaning of Christmas is really all about. I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!