The ornament battle

A friend asked if we had our tree up. Yes, the tree is up. No decorations yet. Because we have not had the annual, "Homemade or store-bought ornament" conversation. It's happening this weekend. I can hardly wait.

Here's a little preview, from last December. (And for the record, I love the ornament pictured here! Which, of course, ruins my argument, I know...)

The tree is up, the lights are on and that means it’s time for our annual fight discussion over what ornaments go on the tree! Yay for Christmas traditions!

Sean is partial to store-bought ornaments. Ornaments made in factories by people who don’t even know us. He likes the glass balls and cars and houses that have been given to us for years. I, though, am a fan of homemade ornaments, namely those made my father’s mom, Mama Mary. She lovingly sewed little sequins onto felt cutouts and stuffed them full of fluff just so our tree could be the prettiest in all the land. But no – Sean wants to pervert our tree with plastic stuff made in China.

Each Christmas I’m reminded I hardly know the man.

While I definitely appreciate all the ornaments we’ve been given (seriously), I would prefer we display them around the house. We could make a little village out of the Hallmark house and car ornaments. We could put the animal ornaments around the mantel with the greenery. We could put the glass balls... strike that. I really, really hate those glass balls. I’m saying for most of the store-bought ornaments I can find a place for them. Just not on my tree.

(One year we had two trees. That seemed to solve the problem, but I’m already behind the eight ball this December; I can barely get one tree up, let alone two.)

As usual, I’ve had to compromise. Some of his made-with-machines ornaments are on the tree. Some of my Mama Mary’s ornaments are on the tree. And things were good. But then my sister-in-law, from the family of store-bought ornaments, had to go and send me a pre-Christmas present:

A "Merry Christmas Y'all" ornament.

Now how can I possible refuse to put such an adorable thing on the tree?

I'm beginning to think Sean enlisted her help to get me to not only put a store-bought ornament on the tree, but a store-bought BALL ornament at that.

Gotta say, it looks pretty good right next to those made-with-love, homemade ornaments... I fear I have totally lost this battle. Because the bottom line is the home-made ornaments were lovingly made, but the store-bought ones were lovingly picked. Call me doubly-lovingly-blessed.