Favorite Christmas Tradition

Every year during Relief Society or other social gathering, the question is inevitably asked:

What is your favorite Christmas tradition?

In past years, I had never really been able to come up with an answer that was completely satisfying to me. Yes, my family has abelskeivers every Christmas morning. Abelskeivers are Swedish fried pancake balls (basically), which requires the use of a special cast-iron pan specifically made for this purose. A Norwegian friend of mine says that they are not actually Swedish, but from another Scandanavian country. Anyhow. Yes it is yummy, but it's not particularly something that I look back upon with nostalgia...especially not in past years when I can just feel the vegetable oil that the pancakes are fried in cruising through my veins and clogging my arteries. Yeah, I'm a romantic.

Another tradition I would mention was the filling of the Dutch wooden shoes with candy by Santa Claus....although again, no nostalgia for this one, it just meant more candy! We're not even Dutch, for goodness' sake!

Or something that I would mention was the placing of straw in a manger for every act of service performed during the month of December and then placing the baby Jesus (one of my sisters' dolls) in the manger on Christmas Eve. This one came the closest of the past three of being a tradition I could look back upon with fondness since it encouraged selflessness, service and charity, plus it focused on spiritual matters rather than our stomaches.

But while I was decorating the Christmas tree, I finally came up with MY answer to the question, "What is your favorite Christmas tradition?"

Christmas ornaments.

I have a Christmas ornament from every single year of my life from my mom and my Grandma Belcher (until she passed away, que en paz descansa), usually signifying something that I started that year, or accomplished or had an interest in. Of course I have the obligatory "Baby's First Christmas" (one of the few ornaments that rats in our attic didn't destroy about 15 years ago). For several years I have mostly penguin ornaments as I was completely obsessed with penguins. When I started to play the flute, I have ornaments of angels playing the flute. Same with the tuba. I got an ornament of a car (a classic cadillac to be exact) the year I got my driver's license. When I turned 16, I got an ornament of a mouse sitting on a makeup bag, signifying me getting ready for my dates (although admittedly, I did not do well in the makeup department OR the dates department, but I was finally allowed to!).

When Leo came for his first Christmas, he got an ornament from my Grandma. We started getting joint ornaments once we got married, usually with Mexican themes since we were living in Mexico. Let's see what we get this year!

It makes putting up the Christmas tree a fun and nostalgic ride. It also refreshes my memory as to when certain events happened, since I have a notoriously bad memory when it comes to past events in my own life (but ask me the year that the cartoon Steamboat Willie featuring Micky Mouse was released? No problem! 1928)

In the meantime, I just wanted to share this with you, and I must get back to shopping for Tiago's ornament for this year! What shall it be?