Christmas Traditions - Christmas Tree Ornaments

This is likely only part 1 because I am sleepy, have little windows of time, and am only going to talk about 1 tradition, turns out our family has more than I thought!

When I was little I began receiving occasional Christmas ornaments. Eventually it became expected to get at least 1 from somebody! My husband received some too. Yet our first Christmas our tree was a little on the sparse side, so it was a good thing that we stuck it in the corner and only had to decorate a third of it!

Our first Christmas tree decorating just the two of us was special, and Mr. Pear had a special ornament for me for the tree. A couple one. And now each year we get a couple ornament, and it goes on the tree when we put it up.

Our daughter's first Christmases were marked with a very special ornament with their name on it. Both have the same ornament, Joy Ride from Lenox. It is a special gift from us to them so that one day they have a tangible reminder of how thrilled we were to celebrate their first Christmas with them.

Each year it is our tradition to put a Christmas tree decoration in the stockings. We try to pick something that is both nice and kind of marking that time in their lives. So far there is lots of Winnie the Pooh as that was the nursery theme for both girls, and a huge favorite around here.

Each year the grandparents give the girls an ornament too.

So for those of you keeping track, each girl gets 3 ornaments each Christmas, except for their first Christmas when they get 4. At this rate, at their 23th birthdays they will each have 70 Christmas Tree decorations. Yeah, I don't think their first Christmas trees will be sparse either!

It is such a fun tradition! And I am making a photo log of their ornaments so we not only know which ornament belongs to which Pear, but also who gave it to them and when.

While it may not be something that gets tucked away in their hope chests, it is a special tradition that already I am looking forward with to helping them when they have their own homes one day in the very far, very distant future.

Because I am sentimental

Monday and yesterday I did a job that really hurt. I put away all of Baby Pear's 3-6 month clothing. She had only been in them for about 2 weeks (longer for the sleepers). For a lot of reasons Baby will be the last pear added to our household, so it is time to pass things on. Some of the clothing was new to baby and only worn once or twice, a couple outfits not at all. It was hard to pack it up knowing that when she finally gets out of her harness she may even be out of the 6-9 month clothing.

We have friends due any day, and I am boxing stuff up to ship to them. If they do not have a girl I will pull out all the girl stuff for a neighbor due in February. (We did not know that Miss Pear was a girl until she was born, so we have lots of generic stuff - plus I love baby blue on girls).

But even knowing that these clothes were going to a good home it was hard.

So I am saving all my favorites, all the special ones. The outfits that:

• Miss Pear wore when we filed the final application for my green card
• Baby wore to ER and then home from the hospital
  
• both girls wore and wore and wore
• were special gifts

My plan is to make a blanket for each girl out of them. It is all knit cotton that I am saving so it will just be squares sewn together and then quilted (probably knot quilts). For the back I am going to use their receiving blankets and flannel crib sheets. At the rate I cannot part with stuff they may both end up with queen sized quilts!

I am also saving their dresses for a second quilt for each.

It is definitely making boxing stuff up and passing it on easier.

Reformation Sunday Baptism

Baby Pear was baptized yesterday, and we had no idea it was Reformation Sunday until the pastor announced it!

At six and a half weeks Baby Pear was baptized. We chose this particular Sunday because it was the one Sunday her grandma would be visiting us from over 2000 miles away. It was a beautiful service, and we were joined by our sweet neighbors and Baby Pear's godmother who is also a dear friend and the mom of Miss Pear's best friend!

Baby was baptized in a traditional christening gown made from Mr. Pear's mom's wedding dress.

While this might seem a bit over the top, christening gowns are tradition in both our families.

Miss Pear was baptized in the christening gown that I was baptized in. It was made by my grandma, and the reason that mine was new was that my mom was not the first born, so the family dress was not handed down to her. As an only child, my dress automatically got handed down to me. After Miss Pear's baptism the gown was preserved and placed in her hope chest.

Baby Pear could have been baptized in the same dress, or we could have borrowed Mr. Pear's family one (being a younger son, the gown was not handed down to him either). But this seemed kind of disappointing to me. And so we began casting around for ideas until my MIL volunteered to make it. We were thrilled. Baby's dress will be preserved and be the start of her hope chest as well.

So both girls had special dresses.

Baptism is so much more than tradition, it is the dedication of our child to God, the claiming of His promises for her, and the promise to do all possible under the power of the Holy Spirit to raise our her for Him. Our church family makes promises to help us. Our girls will need to one day make a decision for themselves. But on Sunday we gave our youngest to the Lord and she was welcomed into her church family.

So while both girls were baptized at six and a half weeks (I was baptized at 2 weeks, my husband around 8 weeks), and in family gowns, the tradition is nice, but not the most important.

We have prayed that true revival will start in our families with our little nuclear family. That the grandparents and aunts and uncles will move from tradition to real relationships, and that there will be godly generations to follow, with no one left out. So the fact that Sunday was Reformation Sunday seemed very special to us because we have essentially been praying for reformation in our families.

Mrs. Pear's Hope Chest Methods - Part 1

As I mentioned here, part of what got us started on a hope chest for our daughter so early was the special things we wanted to save, which were numerous in her first year! While my goal is to set aside things that are valuable to our family, I do hope to avoid the problem the DHM of the Common Room finds herself in so I have shown more restraint in the second and third years!

We also had a strong desire to do something special for Miss Pear's first birthday, but all the keepsake ideas just seemed like more clutter we did not need! Plus we knew a move was in our near future at the time, so more clutter was not in order! I am not sure exactly when it occurred to us, but as soon as the idea of starting a hope chest came to us we both knew it was the right idea for us!

The idea of a hope chest had a few immediate benefits as far as we were concerned:

• it gave us a way of saving stuff that was special that we felt Miss Pear would need or want one day
• it gave us a way of doing something special for not only her first birthday but each birthday
• it was part of an answer to prayer, or at least the seeds of it - I will eventually talk more about this as God is really showing me lots in this area, but I am still figuring it out.

It had long term benefits too!

• it was a way to slowly start accumulating stuff for when Miss Pear has a home of her own (I try to include nice linens at this point because stuff like that is rare when you first move to a home of your own!)
  
• it was is a place to store projects she makes as I eventually teach her the arts of knitting, sewing, quilting, cross stitching, and ribbon embroidery just to name a few! (I would love to learn to crochet and make lace too and then pass those skills on too!)
• it marks special times in Miss Pear's life that would likely not be saved if we waited until she was older.
• it keeps me faithful in storing up a special gift for her one day.
• it keeps keepsakes safe - who knows if mugs put away now would survive if they were just tucked into a corner of a closet!
  

Now, while all this is well and good, I am trying very hard to keep this project from becoming gargantuan and taking over the house, especially considering that she is only 3, and that we don't have an attic with storage room or a basement! And our garage is very small.

So when I decide to save things I ask myself if I will really regret it if I don't save it, if it is really so special that I cannot bear to part with it. I also ask myself if it will be really meaningful years from now or be useful. Just because it is fun or nice now does not mean it will be 20 years from now!

And when we are selecting things to put away each year we definitely consider how large it is. There will come a time when larger things are added, but that is not now. There will also come a time where I add more each year, but again, that time is not now either!

Even if your kids are older, it really is not too late to start, and if you have boys, you can always put away a few special things because one day they will have families too and I am sure their future wives will appreciate your forethought!

Do you have hope chests started for your kids? What kinds of things are you saving?

Note: The methods part is clearly going to be a series, so I set up a hope chest label so that you can find it all later if you would like.

Miss Pear's Hope Chest - Year 3

This year one very special thing we put away for Miss Pear was a copy of the New Testament that belonged to my great granny who Miss Pear is named for (Great Granny's first name is Miss Pear's middle name).

A Japanese Pink Green Tea cup that was sent to Miss Pear from friends as they returned from 2 years in Japan. It actually arrived during her second year and lived in our china hutch, but when we moved to our new home the china hutch ended up stored in the garage, so we put the cup away - it is gorgeous!

Lady Bug Magnets – Auntie made these for her when we visited Canada in September because she was in love with lady bugs! It was a rather large set, so I kept half out for the lower half of the fridge and put half away.


Happy 3rd Birthday
From Daddy and Mommy – All-clad odd measuring cups and spoons (to finish off the set I started last year and because Miss Pear thinks that baking with me in the kitchen is the best game EVER!), 4 knit dish clothes that I made
From Grandma – to be determined! She wanted to hand down a special family something but had not decided yet. She is also on her road trip so she thought that she might find something on her trip that has been a long dream of hers!
From Grandma and Grandpa – The second petit point picture that is part of the set.

As you can tell, we are showing more restraint! There are some things in her room that I could never pass down or pass on as they have a very special meaning to us such as her night light (story to be told as part of the baby preparations), the quilt on her bed, the prayer quilt that hangs on her wall, a picture that was given to her on her first trip to Canada....Things that are incredibly sentimental! These are the kinds of things that no one else would likely understand, but your family knows, and appreciates!

Miss Pear's Hope Chest - Year 2

Year 2 is a much shorter list!

In her second year we put away:

Mug from first trip to a zoo September 2006

-2 Mugs from Miss Pear's first church home, where she was baptized. They were given to her grandparents the first time they visited the church, and I could not think of a better thing to do with them when I was cleaning out a cupboard!

-green slippers with pink flowers that Miss Pear loved so much that I had to save them when she outgrew them.

- She was given a knit hat for Christmas (actually good to have in Southern California as the nights are cool and she had very little hair at the time!), it was her color, purple, and she loved the pompoms on it! She would literally sort through her drawer looking for it then pull it out and run around the house wearing it!

On her Second Birthday we put away the following:
-From Daddy and Mom-mom (what she called me at the time) – All-clad measuring cups and spoons, a favored toy when we are baking together, cloth napkins to match last years place mats.
-From Grandma – a purple quilt quilted by her grandmother! (So Miss Pear's Great Great grandmother!)
-From Grandma and Grandpa – a petit point picture - part of a 2 picture set that was made as a gift for Grandma.

Miss Pear's Hope Chest - Year 1

Good Morning!

Because it is much too hot to think here today, I thought I would continue the hope chest series with what was put aside for Miss Pear during her first year. I keep track via a Word file on the computer so that I know the who and when of the items. Not exactly scientific, but it works for me! I do try to be descriptive in the list so that items can be matched up. It is my plan that while I am storing in plastic tubs to print the list that goes with that tub and slip it in.


For Miss Pear's first birthday I decided to make a set of 4 French Provincial style place mats. Needless to say they were not done in time! But they are done now, are very cute and are tucked away in the box.

A Pooh Bear rattle was a decoration on a present from us to match the Winnie the Pooh theme of her birthday, so I had to save that once she was done with it.

One grandmother embroidered a set of 7 dish towels.

The other grandmother placed inside an embroidered dish towel and my grandmother's copy of the 4-H cook book from when I was a 4-Her!


Other items placed in during this year were:

• Sleeper that Mommy came home from the hospital in (honestly, I did not know what else to do with it).
  
• Hat that Miss Pear wore in the hospital - it was a newborn hat that we brought with us that was so much softer than the ones at the hospital, and fit better too.
• Shirt Miss Pear was given at the hospital with the hospital logo on it.
• Sleeper and hat that Miss Pear came home from the hospital in (we did not put it away until after she outgrew it!)
• Pink and White sweater that was Mommy’s
• Miss Pear’s Christening Gown – It was made by Miss Pear’s Great Grandma for Mommy to be baptized in. (We had this preserved, so it is in an annoyingly large cardboard box, but it still fits in the plastic tub, and I pray a third generation will wear it, followed by many more!)
• Miss Pear’s First Christmas - Special First Christmas socks from Daddy and Mommy
• Barnyard Dance - Miss Pear ’s first signed book just for her. This was a favorite, as seen by the teething evidence….
• Dusty Rose sweater that Mommy knit for Miss Pear while recovering from a broken foot. It was the first sweater she made.

Baby Blankets Saved for Miss Pear (none in box yet, they still get used occasionally)
- White on white quilt a Grandma made
- Pooh Bear cross stitch Afghan a Grandma made
- Ribbon blanket a Grandma made
- White, pink, and blue afghan Great Great Auntie made
- Purple afghan dear friend made and shipped from Japan


As you can see, an inordinate amount of stuff has been set aside from the first year, but I forced my self to show some restraint. I tried to limit myself to real keepsakes, things that I would be heartbroken to lose, or that were particularly meaningful. I also tried to put a few mementos that were family pass downs.

Lest you think we have to set aside an entire closet for this project, I assure you that the first year is by far the longest list so far! And some items are stored at grandparents homes and will eventually make their way here as there is room in the suitcases! Therefore we have only one plastic tub - although it is full, and another is needed. The tubs will be stored in Miss Pear's closet once I pull the baby stuff out!

Once I am sure I will not need the crib sheets (I am thinking about waiting until baby is born before I order crib sheets so I can order pink or blue, so I might need these ones a bit longer even though they are worn out along the edges) I will be using them to sew protective covers for quilts - more on this later, but the white on white quilt will need a cover, as will at least 2 more known to date. Quilts should always be folded top side in, then stored wrapped in cotton - pillow cases work best. Choose a light color if possible, old pillow cases work great as they will not leach color. As receiving blankets start to fray they will be used for this purpose too.

I am not as organized in storage as I could be, but that will become an important project in the next couple years.

Starting to think about Hope Chests

Earlier this week or late last week I had posted about my knit dish clothes that I had completed while recovering from a broken toe (I still wish I had a better story on that one!) Any how, I mentioned that 3 of the dish clothes were going into Miss Pear's hope chest.

Vicki commented asking about this and basically what we were doing, and as this is a topic near and dear to my heart I wanted to comment.

It all started when I started saving special things for Miss Pear.

I saved the outfit my mom had brought down that I was brought home from the hospital in. The sleeper Miss Pear was brought home from the hospital in. My christening gown that Miss Pear wore the weekend of my 30th birthday when she was baptized. A sweater I wore that was saved that she wore. And probably a couple other special things. I realized that I needed a place to keep this, hence began a hope chest of sorts.

Then around came her birthday, and I wanted to do something special, but none of the keepsake ideas were really our style. So the hope chest idea flourished, and we decided to put one thing away for her birthday each year. The grandparents have joined us in this, and occasionally we put something in during the year as well if there is a special occasion or something like that.

Also, as Miss Pear out grew them, I put away some special blankets that were made by special people just for her.

So, as she just turned three, next week there will be three posts (God willing and baby in my tummy cooperating). There will be a post for each year of her life and what went into her box. Plus a few resources and ideas I have liked that have helped me, plus some future plans I have for her hope chest, plus our thought process as we select items. Plus, I refer to it as a box because it is currently stored in a plastic bin. (We are so fancy around here! I hope to one day replace it with a cedar chest, but am in no rush!)

As I am starting this, do you have anything you would like me to include in this miniseries? I would be more than happy to try answer questions!