Every year for Christmas I make my boys personalized ornaments that have something to do with their interests or special events of the year. Other than my free motion quilted ornaments, these were my only stitched gifts this year.
Back in the spring, Nathan wanted money to buy a few toys, so he decided to hold an art sale. He drew some pictures, then took them down by the main road through town and sold them. He only charged 10¢ per picture, but most people gave him more than that (some considerably more!). When the first batch of pictures sold, he promptly drew more, then more and then more again. And then more again...In the end, over the course of the summer, he made well over $100 and a good portion of the residents of our town now own Nathan Parsons originals 😊 A professional artist in town even bought one of Nathan's pictures, then gave Nathan a print of one of his own paintings. The ornament is a cross-stitch version of Nathan's sign that he held up while "art selling" as he called it.
Zachary's ornament was suggested by Paul this year. When one of our boys turns 12, Paul takes him on a weekend camping trip, just the two of them. This year it was Zach's turn and the two of them went to Gros Morne National Park, where they completed a geocache challenge, finding 5 caches hidden around the park and doing a fair bit of hiking to find them (all before getting rained out of their last day). The compass cross stitch was designed by Angee of October's Morning and it was perfect.
Aiden's was a little harder to come up with...He's still all about music, but I've already given him drum and guitar ornaments, so I wasn't sure what to do this year. Then Paul suggested the word music, but with the c unfinished and a pencil poised as if writing, to symbolize both Aiden's passion for music and the fact that he started writing his own music recently.
If you'd like to see their previous ornaments, you can see the 2015 ones here, 2014 here and the ones before then are all in this post.
This is one of my favourite Christmas traditions, and I love how much the boys speculate about what their ornaments will be each year.
Do you have any special handmade Christmas traditions?
What fantastic ornaments and memories to commemorate, Leanne! I am so glad you had such a great Christmas, we had snow for Christmas day and on New Year's Eve as well - the perfect kind of snow that basically melts the next day (haha!). If it does snow a lot, I do love snowshoeing, though, too.
ReplyDeleteYour ornaments are great! I love how one of your sons helped with his brother's.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh...these are adorable. Great designs for this year.
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