Christmas at the Whitehouse

It's finally after Thanksgiving, which means people can stop shaming everyone else for just trying to be in the holiday spirit and decorating for Christmas.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions with Parker has been our ornament collection. Our first married Christmas, we got home from Thanksgiving in Henderson/Owensboro and decided it was time to decorate. We got my old college tree out and, alas, my tree was super broken. So broken. I think I almost cried - it was our first Christmas together, and we wouldn't even have a tree. Off to Walmart we went to get what is now our current Christmas tree.

Now in Chapel Hill we finally decided to graduate out of our $10 Walmart ornaments (by graduate I mean we moved all the way up to $15 Target ones - I know, bougie).

More importantly, though, we've managed to keep up our annual tradition of buying a new ornament each year themed with the traditional anniversary gifts. If you don't know much about them, here is where I usually find what the current year's gift is (aka a quick Google away). Our first Christmas together, though, we of course used a "First Christmas" ornament. From this point on, we've done each year accordingly.

Year one: Paper. This paper star somehow keeps surviving year after year of putting away decorations. I saw this star at Target, and the hypnosis of Target of course drew me in to buy a seemingly useless item. I just can't help myself.

Year two: Cotton. (A present from our dear friend Caitlin. Mr. Fox has two other friends.) These little guys honestly get to stay out on display all year round.

Year three: Leather. This one was a bit tricky, but we managed to find a perfect combination - a leather Durham Bull. Yes, we live in Chapel Hill kinda, sorta. However, we technically live in Durham and honestly spend much more time there. It feels very Louisville-esque.

Finally: our bonus ornament this year from Disney World. Parker and I both generally hate to spend money on souvenirs. But, given our ornament collecting, what better souvenir to bring home?

Everyone has a Christmas tradition that starts somewhere - let's see how long we can keep this one up, shall we? (For anyone who read ahead...eventually these things start to turn into diamonds.)