Really lovely tradition that I first heard on mumsnet - I want to pass it on to others.....

[IlanaK]

We buy a personalised bauble for each child each year that has their name and the year on it. The idea is that when they are 18 and leave home, they have their own collection for their tree. My eldest is 8 and therefore has 8 in his box and it is his favourite part of christmas - getting them out and hanging them on the tree. I have 3 kids, so they each have their own box and decorations and they hang them on the tree themselves. It makes for a lovely meaningful tree too.

We have started buying them for my nephew too in the hope his parents will continue the tradition for him.

I first heard the idea on mumsnet many many years ago so I thought I would pass it on.

A bit of a different tradition that we started last year was when we pack the decorations away we write a brief letter about the year past, and our hopes for the new year..

Sounds a bit weird?

Last year we wrote the words that ds could say (only 4 - he was 18months), what he liked doing, that we hoped to set a date for our wedding, blah blah blah.

We had forgotton about it until we got the tree out, it was lovely to read, as a reminder IYKWIM... especially since we did actually set a date - we got married 2 months ago, and now ds never shuts up as opposed to the 4 words he came out with last year.

The plan is to keep them all together, as a nice keepsake?

Soppy? Moi? Yup

HerBea I was espousing on another thread here about the magical Christmas baubles of my 70's childhood.

The individual non-matching things bought one or two per year by my skint parents, so by the time I was ten I knew every one of them and loved seeing them come out every year.

And the coloured lights which looked like Quality Street sweeties.

I was just saying that I could imagine ructions r.e the named baubles in the future. Lightheartedly

£9.99 per bauble!

Maybe Chritmas decortaions aren't high on my list of priorities, but I just can't imagine spending £30 per year on baubles.

I do this with my boys. We dont personalise them though they both pick a tree decoration each year and it goes on their tree in the family room along with the things they make at school.

My tree in the sitting room is all white lights and glass baubles and elegant (I like to think). Of course when they do leave home they will probably move in with someone as anal as me who will refuse to have the box of mismatched tat in the house.

If my parents' decs were anything to go by it probably was the equivalent of today's ten or twenty quid per bauble. They were beautiful. Eggshell-like and not just glittery shite but they would be hand-painted and in those days as was the fashion, sewn with silver or gold thread.

I bloody loved the day when the baubles arrived from the loft and I would marvel at the workmanship, the fine silver thread on the pink one or the gilt-edged other. As I've said they were mismatched, which along with the coloured lights added to the magic.

The thing is that the things really did cost in the 70's, there were no pound shops, no Primark, no Wilkos. No "100 baubles for 99p" bollocks.

Hence collecting decs gradually year after year out of necessity.

This thread is making me teary!

We have decided to get one special, individual decoration each year - not personalised, but nice.

I'm really glad we thought of it - so nice to have things for posterity.

The kids each choose one new bauble/decoration/demented animal that makes a noise for the tree each year, so when they help me decorate the tree, they put on their own things and we get to talking about which year we bought which one (no labels so we have to think hard!). No way are they taking them when they leave home! I have visions of me decorating the tree, teary-eyed, for years to come!