While the photo ornaments are very special, I also treasure the “stuff they’re into” ornaments too. Every year I get each kid at least one ornament based on something they were into that year. Some years they get more than one! At this point the vast majority of ornaments on the tree are ones I gave them in the past.
Here are some of the ornaments I’ve given them in the past.
My daughter was SO into My Little Pony for so long. And my son still loves all things Mario, including Yoshi. You’ll also notice an Elf ornament, because that is one of our favorite Christmas movies.
They were both so into the Garfield comics for so long. My in-laws kept all my husband’s Garfield books and both kids read them until they literally fell apart.
Oh my god my son was SOOO into Pokemon. He still has so many cards in his room. I wonder how old he’ll be when he’s willing to part with them. I’ve spent many an hour playing Pokemon. I’m actually pretty good when I’m allowed to play a decent deck.
The 14yo was very into Pusheen. He’s still a family favorite.
The 11yo was a big LEGO builder for many years. We have probably thousands of dollars of LEGOs under the couch, let alone in his room. When I saw these ornaments you could build and put in the globe ornaments I bought everyone I could find. We have five on our tree each year. Their red ribbons fill out the tree.
Our family was so obsessed with Shaun the Sheep, but I could not find any ornmanets of them, so I bought a set of figurines and made ornaments. I wrote a whole post on how I used to do this all the time, when the kids were young.
This year the 11yo got a Fortnite llama, because he’s obsessed with Fortnite.
The 14yo got a Hello Kitty ornament, because I desperately wanted to get her one last year, but I couldn’t find one anywhere. This year I came across one randomly and snatched it up!
This year I got my husband his first ornament, a Luchador mask to represent our trip to Ciudad de Mexico last year.
Which reminds me that I try to get ornaments from places we visit, but I’m not always able to (like in CDMX). But I have managed it on occasion.
But it’s the ornaments for the kids, that represent what they are into that year, that I love the most. Tomorrow they are both getting one more ornament from Heart, our Elf on the Shelf, because I saw them on sale at CVS and couldn’t help myself. The 11yo is getting Homer Simpson in a Santa suit and the 14yo is getting a Minecraft axolotl, because when she was younger we had to hear about how cool the axolotl update in Minecraft was going to be for a full year.
More on Heart for the next Christmas Tradition post.
