She also loves traditions... ones that create special, fond, memorable moments. I guess she has passed on this love of traditions to me... We had several Christmas traditions, one of which was a new ornament each year for me and Erica. I know a lot of people did (do) this. The ornaments were usually ones that reflected a particular stage of life... or ones that we thought were cute or cool. (One of my favorites was for the year I was 12 or 13. It was a little brown haired girl with a shopping bag, and it said, "born to shop" -- my first year to really love shopping).
The only thing I love in equivalency to my Mom's love for Christmas is pictures. I have a fairly serious obsession with photos (as most people reading this blog would know). When I bought my apple laptop, the guys transferring over my harddrive from my old computer later told me that I had 23,000 photos. And that's just the digital ones. :) From the time I bought my first camera (after I saved $65.00 in 4th grade to buy it) - a minolta 365, I have been taking photos. When my youth group went to Las Angeles (I was in the ninth grade), I took SEVEN rolls of film. I've been the annoying family photographer for most of my life... (I refer to it as "documenting" my life). Van teases me and says that the back of his head has seen a lot of really cool things -- but he didn't because he was too busy posing for a picture. :)
So after marriage, when trying to create in my own new home a similar atmosphere of Christmas excitement as I had always had in my home growing up as well as our own new traditions, it seemed only natural to start a new family tradition of ornaments + pictures. Totally obvious, no?
When laying out the rules of this new tradition, I decided that I would limit myself to ONE picture ornament a year because if I allowed more than one a year it would get totally out of control. If you don't believe me, just try to count the number of any set of photos in one room in my house... I assure you it's probably more than the average.
The idea of this one Christmas ornament-photo would be to describe and or illustrate a highlight of our year. A "where-we-were-at" and "what was important to us", kind-of-photo. It is already a FAVORITE tradition of mine. I literally think about it all year. On every special occasion or unique experience that happens in a year I find myself wondering... "Will the photo come from this week/experience?"
Right now there are only 6 (okay - seven including 2009s small double). But it is already so much fun pulling them out and remembering these special life occasions. I can't wait until there are like 60. :) By then, I'll probably have forgotten so much... that'll it'll be like a new surprise every time I unwrap one. My life remembered in photographs.
***(My one exception to the rule: In 2009, I graduated from anesthesia school which was what we had been living for for several years... so really that should have been the highlight picture. But we spent two really awesome months living in Baltimore while I was doing a rotation at Johns Hopkins... every weekend we headed down for a day to DC to explore the city. On Easter Sunday, I suggested that it would be neat to go to Easter at the National Cathedral... and it totally was. It was such a fun couple of months, and Easter at the National Cathedral was such a highlight, that I made that the photo of the year. (And we didn't really have a great photo of just me and Van at my graduation anyways) So I added a second photo of 2009 of just me in my cap and gown and a big smile. Since it was just me, I concluded that it didn't really count, but it still sort of highlighted the event. I sort of think it was okay to make an exception to the rule that year. I made the rules - so I'm allowed to break them. But only for extremely rare occasions. ha)
So, here they are in order...
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| Obviously the highlight of our year in 2006 was our wedding! |
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| In 2007, we moved to Portland, ME for me to attend anesthesia school. This was the best decision on our married life. |
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| Late in 2007 we happened across this covered bridge in Windham, ME. In 2008, we experienced "the rope swing" at the covered bridge for the first time. We spent almost every free second of our summer here. It was the perfect place for me to forget for just an hour or two that I was immersed in anesthesia school. It was therapeutic and re-energizing. The Covered Bridge was definitely our favorite thing about 2008. |
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| As I mentioned earlier, we got to live in Baltimore for two months in 2009 - and we felt very adventurous on going to the National Cathedral for Easter that year. It was a really fun two months getting to spend so much time in DC. |
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| And of course the real highlight for me was graduating and passing boards... 2009 was just a really good year. :) |
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| 2010 was our first year in San Antonio. Just like with the Portland Headlight in Maine, there didn't seem to be anywhere else to remember this year in TX any better but at the Alamo. |
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| Van and I LOVE to travel. And although we had traveled quite a bit together in the US, in 2011, we went to Europe together for the first time. Although we had both been before separately, it's always more fun when we're together. Our 2011 highlight photo is in front of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. |
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| 2012. After six years of marriage, Van and I bought our first home! We now own a little piece of Texas... and to beat it all, it happened to be on the three year anniversary of my graduation from anesthesia school date.
It's been a FUN six years!! I wonder what next year's photo will be?? Only time will tell... :)
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