Christmas Ornament Exchange

This year I was invited to an ornament exchange by my friend Natalie.  The requirements of the exchange were to bring six wrapped ornaments.  Everyone would leave with six new ornaments.  The concept is similar to a cookie exchange.  But I also learned this year that there is such a thing as a wine exchange.  I'm totally organizing a wine exchange next year for sure.  If you want to be on the invite list, just let me know.  I have a feeling there's going to be lots of wine exchanging.  

These are the ornaments I selected.  I do love snowmen.  And I  hoped that everyone else would love them as much as I did.  Well, they did, except I was unaware of the rules of the ornament swap.  Bring 6 DIFFERENT ornaments.  No one seemed to mind, and I will know for next time. 

We all chose a number then made our ornament selections.  Did I mention that all of the ornaments were wrapped?  So we were selecting based on wrapping.  Some of them were wrapped in tissue paper, some in boxes and tins and some in super sparkly, glittery bags.  I really wanted to take all of the sparkly ones, but I chose several different ones.  The catch of this ornament exchange?  If the person with the number behind you wanted one of your ornaments, they had to take them ALL.  Thankfully, no one did that, but at the end, we each swapped with each other to get a few that better suited our Christmas tree needs. 

This year, being in Florida, and it also being my last Christmas living in Florida, I decided to go with a nautical theme.  I have decorated my tree with teal and white lights, mermaids, starfish,fish,  sea lions, sea horses and, of course, turtles.   My turtle tree topper, which is really an ornament posing as a tree topper, was sent to me by my dear friend, Elaine Brockhaus.  What a great surprise to receive it in the mail.   I am happy to say at my ornament exchange, I ended up with a few more ornaments to fit in with my nautical theme including a crab, a sparkly sand shell and a turtle. 

I actually have three trees this year, and they are all decorated with the same type of ornaments.    They are small and are part of a three piece alpine tree set.    Here is the biggest one:

I hope that by now, your tree is up and decorated (if you are choosing to put one up this year), and that you are enjoying the twinkling of the lights and the memories of each ornament that adorns it. 

Merry Christmas,

Debbie

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