Favorite Christmas Ornaments

As a kid, our christmas tree was always crammed with a hodge-podge of ornaments, from the tradiotional glass balls to scribbly bits of paper and string from our days in pre-school and kindergarten. After the multi-colored lights and silver garland went on (but before the myriad of flavored candy canes) , we would take out the three or so giant tins of ornaments and go to town. There are mant fond memories that come with this task. As they all pass through our fingers and we recall, with a smile, where they came from, or declare, "man, I can't beleive mom saved this...". Some of the favorites on that tree include a collection of characters from the "Little Mermaid" movie with santa hats on- no doubt from a happy meal, play-doh ornaments with glitter glue, many ornaments that play cheery little Christmas tunes, all of our "baby's first Christmas" ornaments, and one costume-jewelry clip-on earring with "diamonds" and "emeralds" ( a long time favorite of my siter and I.) Now that I have my own family, though, I have started to collect my own ornaments. Although there aren't many at this point, I think that my favorite right now is Joie's "My First Christmas" ornament from the Christmas she should have been out for but wasn't. Short story- I was due to give birth on December 29th, but the doctor's wanted to induce labor because of my blood pressure being high. So we went in to be induced, and she didn't really agree with us and decided to stay in until her due date. My mom, however, jumped the gun and bought the ornament. She said we could just change the date on it, but I think this will spark giggles and the re-telling of this story for many years to come. ("mom, why do I have TWO first christmas ornaments from different years??")