More Christmas Tradition

I think I already mentioned the tradition my mom started when we were kids - she gave us each one ornament per year (sometimes more than that) with the idea that when we moved out, she would give all the ornaments to us for our own trees.

Love my sweet Mommy :)

This year we put our tree up the day before Thanksgiving and then hosted Turkey Day at our house. My mom came over early to help cook and I loved watching her face light up when she saw all of the ornaments from our childhood on my family tree. She walked around and around the tree, pointing out her favorites and thinking about Christmases past. Like I said earlier, she has continued to give us ornaments into adulthood. I think she continues to do so because she enjoys picking out ornaments for us.

So, I wasn't surprised when she called me a few weeks ago saying that she was at World Market and would I like her to pick me up an ornament to replace one of mine that had cracked.

I was, however, surprised to go over to her house on Saturday and see that she had picked up NINE ornaments for our tree! The Japanese dolls are called "kokeshi" dolls. I collected these dolls (the full-size version) while I was living in Japan. They are now displayed throughout my house and they are so special to me. My mom has a collection as well from her visits to Japan to see me and also when she accompanied my Dad on a work trip. She really enjoys other cultures. Anyway, the ornament I told her had cracked was a kokeshi doll and since we have a shared affinity for them and she didn't know what the cracked one looked like, she went ahead and got 5 to replace it. Thanks Mommy! All the way to the left of the picture is a Russian stacking doll. She picked this one up for Steven because he brought several of those dolls back from Russia when he spent some time there with the Navy. To the right of that is a plate of - you guessed it - sushi rolls. My favorite!! This reminds me of the plates of sushi at the sushi-go-round in Yokosuka. Each plate was a different color and at the end of the meal, the waitress would count how many plates were at the table and that was the amount we paid. So delicious and so inexpensive compared to sushi in America. Finally, my mom saw this white owl and said it she thought it looked like something I would like. She was right!

I asked her to put my initials and the year on the back like she did when I was a kid.

One more fun surprise this week. It's not really a tradition, but it's so stinking cute, I had to share. Jackson's preschool teachers asked that we send a white shirt to school for a project and this is what they sent home on Monday:

How cute is that??? It's a reindeer and the face is Jackson's foot and the antlers are his hands! Such a cute idea. When Steven saw it, he told me that it was his favorite shirt yet - haha, thanks, but I didn't make this one, Jackson did!