November 26, 2004

8:52 AM

I'm looking for a Christmas tree ornament for my wife to celebrate our first Christmas together as married folks. Something unique and special. We're not religious, but Christmas is important to us. Would anybody offer some suggestions?
posted by DakotaPaul to (10 comments total)

Perhaps a set of five golden rings looped together? The rings would reference nicely back to the marriage, and with five of them, to the 12 days of Christmas.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:09 AM on November 26, 2004

How about something handmade? Even if you're not 'crafty', a lot of those paint-your-own-ceramics places have ornaments to paint and have fired. A nice "First Xmas," with the year, in your own hand, might be very special.
posted by icetaco at 9:28 AM on November 26, 2004

my mom poked a hole in a tin box of lozenges, and hangs it from the christmas tree every year. the reason is that it was given to her by a doctor who saved her life through heart surgery. so to me, that "ornament" is the most beautiful one i can remember, because every time i see it i am happy that my mom is alive. my point is, you might be able to take an everyday object that binds you and your wife together somehow, and turn it into an ornament.
posted by edlundart at 9:39 AM on November 26, 2004

For our first Christmas together, my husband and I made a bunch of ornaments reminiscent of the ones that we enjoyed growing up. I should mention that we're both excessively childhood-referential people (but, really most musicians and artists tend to be, right?) and I have three boxes of ornaments at my mom's house that go on the tree every year.

ANYWAY, one of the main ones we did was to take pipe cleaners and red, green, and clear tri-beads to make candy canes and wreaths. Very cheap and easy and stringing the beads on the pipe cleaners was kind of soothing, actually.

Other make-your-own suggestions:
- using dough or fimo-type clay to make thumb/fingerprint ornaments. If you have children someday, you can add little handprint ones too.
- Dough is also good for wreaths and stuff too, although, as we have learned over the past 20+ years, the fimo clay might be more durable in the long run (my handprint as a tot is now preserved in a bag).
- getting some heavy-duty foil or the sheets of thin metal you can get at craft stores and tooling designs on them.
posted by stefnet at 9:56 AM on November 26, 2004

Great ideas everybody! I love the idea of a handmade ornament, even though I'm not "crafty." Thanks all!
posted by DakotaPaul at 10:02 AM on November 26, 2004

This is more for your second and subsequent christmases, but one thing we do is each year before we put up the tree, we slice off a very thin slice off the bottom, and then make an ornament out of that for next year's tree. (Be sure to put the year on it somewhere.)
posted by luser at 10:17 AM on November 26, 2004

If I can remember back to when I was in Brownies... we would get old milkweed pods [you can also cut a pinecone in half, or do a whole bunch of other little nature-y things for these, maybe half a walnut?], spray paint them gold or some color you like and in the concave part put a little laminated picture of you and your wife together. Thread some ribbon through the top to hang it up. It will look amazingly quaint ten years from now and handmade stuff really does conveny seniment in an excellent way. Here are some other suggestions from natural stuff.
posted by jessamyn at 10:18 AM on November 26, 2004

I like making Cinnamon-Applesauce ornaments. They smell wonderful. You could decorate them with names by poking them with a toothpick or skewer in the shape of letters. You could also mold the dough into something rather than roll it flat and use a cookie cutter, but it will tend to crack more.
posted by Shoeburyness at 10:58 AM on November 26, 2004

I find that you rarely go wrong with a little blue box from Tiffany and Co. They do a different ornament every year and they are quite affordable
posted by Megafly at 6:20 AM on November 27, 2004

if you're looking to make a tradition out of it, make or buy an ornament each year that matches the traditional anniversary gift for that year (this year is paper). you'll have to get creative for some years, but it's a nice way to mark the years.
posted by wallaby at 7:34 PM on November 28, 2004