Holiday Countdown Day 17

December 17 - Make or buy an ornament for each family member related to a significant experience from the past year.

This is a new tradition that I can't understand why I didn't think of it before. What a lovely way to grow a meaningful collection of ornaments! Our neighbor friend does this, which is where I took my inspiration. For Aleks, I knew exactly what to buy - a bone to signify his bone graft - though in retrospect I'm not sure how much he'd like to remember the year this way. I guess it's all about me. We found an ornament in the shape of a bone a couple of weeks ago when I mentioned that I knew this activity was coming, so we should get a head-start on our browsing. It's supposed to be a dog bone, I suppose, but it works nevertheless.

Jon came home one day last week with his all picked out. I had spent a lot of time in stores trying to think of what could represent his finishing his PhD. He figured it out while buying a soda at the school book shop.

We had trouble deciding what might represent something that Bastian did or enjoyed or learned this year. His warming up to the homeschool co-ops didn't seem wholly positive. He hasn't quite learned to read, though he's getting the hang of letters (and numbers for that matter) like a boss. He didn't start riding on two wheels. He liked to play a lot of video games though. A lot. I just couldn't stomach that though. And then it hit me - the other thing he really did genuinely enjoy this year that was all him was board games. He loves board games. Finding a ready-made board game ornament was tough though. Wheel of Fortune didn't count to me. So I had to make one. One of his favorite games is Othello. So I got some wooden tags and painting a teeny tiny Othello board.

We glittered up the edges and back to make it properly fancy.

I still had no idea what to get for me. Everything I've been doing is pretty much the same stuff I've been doing. Except maybe teaching Stop Animation, but still. I thought about finding a vegetable ornament to represent my ascension to full manager of City Fresh, but I couldn't find one and it didn't feel quite right. We saw a yarn ball ornament, but it was way overpriced when I knew I could make one easily. I'm not sure I did quite enough knitting this year to really warrant it, either (though I did finish my first lace pattern). Then, a friend showed me this tutorial for a golden snitch ornament, and I knew we had a winner. Yes, the most significant event of my year was the last Harry Potter movie. Go ahead, scoff.

The ornament ended up being quite a pain in the butt. Shaping wire is not my forte, for one. Secondly, no matter what the tutorial says, Fabri-tac is not necessarily a guarantee for making those wings stay on. One of my wings keeps falling and I'm thinking the only solution may be glass glue. Which I will get to...later. After all the other Christmas stuff I have yet to do.