I love decorating my Christmas tree each year.  We have ornaments that date back to when I was a little girl and I love pulling the ornaments one by one out of the box.  As I pull each one out, I remember a little piece of my history.  Ornaments I used to put on our family tree as a girl, ornaments I made myself when SuperMan and I were first married (and I had time to hand-craft things like that!), ornaments I've received as gifts from family and friends…

But some of my most favorite ornaments are the ones that my girls have made for us – and the ones that I have picked up through the years on our travels.  Instead of other souvenirs, I always try to pick up a Christmas ornament when we make a journey somewhere.

There's the one I got at the Tower of London:

I went to London for business and my mom tagged along that year. We had so much fun picking out ornaments to decorate our trees. Now, I see those ornaments each Christmas and remember that trip – and all the fun times we had together. (like trying to drive a stick shift sitting on the "wrong" side of the car and driving on the "wrong" side of the road)

 And this ornament that SuperMan and I got when we went to Hawaii one year (another business trip – that was a good company to work for!)

The one in the background is an ornament I had engraved for my labrador's first Christmas (he was my 18th birthday present to myself)  He is gone to puppy heaven now, but I remember him every year when I put this ornament on the tree – I remember when he was my only baby – and these babies I have now were not even glimmers in my eye.

Christmas, for me, is a time of remembering, celebrating, and hoping.  Remembering things past, celebrating and being thankful for the bounty of the present, and hoping for the future.