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December is upon us! Not that the commercial world hasn’t been shoving it down our throats since Halloween day was almost over but, still, it’s now “appropriate” to be discussing gift ideas. (Though, to be fair, I’m done shopping for almost everyone.)
I’ve written in the past how I have an ornament on my tree for the daughter that I placed for adoption. I purchased it in the months after she was born. I was at a store that carries ornaments and they had all of the previous year’s ornaments that contained the date marked at 75% off. I looked and found a “Baby’s First Christmas” one. I bought it. It took two years to be able to hang it on my tree for reasons I don’t quite understand.
After I shared that story, a few people contacted me lamenting the fact that they didn’t have the foresight to grab an ornament with their relinquished child’s birth year on it. In this day, that’s no longer an issue!
Quite a few retailers, big name stores and independent ones alike, are able to engrave whatever you wish on an ornament. Some examples?
1. Things Remembered. They have quite a few baby ornaments, but a few have a charm on the string that contains the year. One, however, a baby carriage, does not include the 2008 charm. Simply get your child’s given name or adopted name and the birthdate, year or whatever you wish engraved.
2. Go handmade with Etsy! (I have an addiction to the site.) A few examples include this little girl on a swing. You can work with the seller to have it say whatever you want, meaning that you can put the year of birth and not this year! Another one offers the baby atop a Christmas ball with free personalization.
3. Don’t forget ebay! I hopped over there and entered “1981 first Christmas” and got this long list of results. (Of note: “1960 first Christmas” yielded no results.) In fact, I need to do this for my youngest son this year. Why? While I was dealing with PPD last year, I didn’t get him an ornament. Now his brother has 8 different first Christmas ornaments and he has none. Whoops! Life happens, I suppose.
There are also lots of kiosks in your local malls that offer free personalization. I encourage you not to feel embarrassed or even feel the need to explain the whole story when talking with someone to order a “backdated” first Christmas ornament. No one needs an explanation. You just need to do what you need to do.
Let me know if you find any cute ones this year!
I’ve been thinking about getting an ornament to hang on my tree for my son for years now but its like I needed some sort of permission. Well this post just gave me that permission, so thank you.
Oh and as a side note please please please get your youngest son a first christmas ornament soon. Dont put it off. I’m 25 and still get angry when I see my older sister’s numerous first christmas ornaments hanging on the tree and I have none. Come to think of it maybe I’ll order myself one while I’m looking for one for my son.
Katja; Good! I’m glad you’ll be ordering. To be fair to me, my youngest son DOES have two ornaments. But not one that WE, his parents, purchased. I’ll get one. Promise.
Well he’s already better off than me. I guess I can add him to list of people who I’m jealous of because they have baby’s first christmas ornaments
