Santa Claus Ornaments

Every year on Christmas Eve we pull our individual ornaments (which are a surprise) out of a santa cookie jar. This is a tradition began by my great grandma many decades ago. Although she is no longer here, her great-great grandchildren still enjoy this tradition! Grandma Katie's santa jar was a paper mache-like santa - my parents bought one of their own when they had children and he is a roly poly santa in a rocking chair - and now Ryan and I have this one of our own.

Every year I find ornaments that are somehow representative of the children's interests for the year.

This year Norah was fascinated with water faeries...

...and Emerson was obsessed with Batman. hehehe The first couple of years I tried to find ornaments that were very elegant and timeless...but then I realized that the kids actually will enjoy the memories of these much, much more. So we've added to their Thomas Tank and Tink ornaments from last year. :-)

The Butler family still does the Santa ornament tradition as well and although we weren't all together this year, we still all received ornaments commemorating the year. This year I volunteered (with some motivation from my SIL Dannelle) and I made many variations of these and mailed them out to everyone. Grandma Katie used to hand make all of her ornaments, so thats what we try to continue - we each take turns. I kept my least favorite for us, but maybe one of my fab relatives will send me a pic of theirs... Whew - I made 21 ornaments!!