Collection of Christmas Ornaments

We put the Christmas tree up this weekend....

And after it was done, I realized that there were only 6 ornaments that I purchased at a retail store.  The others were gifts, handmade or bought used.  The (leaning) topper was a gift from my mother-in-law.  It was the tree topper Hus grew up with when his family was stationed in (West) Germany in the 1970s.  The other gifted ornaments came from my family.  Each Christmas, my mom gave us an ornament for our collection, many have the dates written somewhere on them.

1979

1981

1983

1987

Mom and Dad also made some ornaments for us when we were children including painted walnuts and angels.

 I remember the year mom made these angels to sell at craft fairs.  She carefully made the heads and hands out of fimo clay (each with a different hairstyle!), and scrounged around anywhere she could for inexpensive lace and ribbons for the dresses.  I have about 4 others on the tree.
I also have my own crafty ornaments on it.  Last year, I found a whole stack of Christmas cards that I had collected and by carefully cutting out small circles and bending them, I transformed them into about a dozen ornaments.

This year, I only had the energy to make this one felt dove.

Finally, there are a few used ornaments adorning the tree like this leg-hugging elf.  I picked it up at a garage sale a few years ago for a dime.  I thought it was cute, but only recently (due to reading blogs) did I find out that these are highly prized.

So maybe our Christmas tree is a bit schizophrenic, but I love all the memories associated with it!