My collection of Christmas-tree ornaments

I guess, everyone of us has collected something in his/her life and I am pretty sure, that some of you still collect something. It may be coins, stamps, Moomin cups or something else.

The very first thing that I started collecting in my life were small papers with pictures. All girls in elementary school were fond of this. Parents bought us notepads with different pictures, they could be different size and shape, and some of them were with pleasant smell. Every break the girls gathered in groups and exchanged the sheets of paper. Thus, every girl had her own collection. I don't remember what happened with mine, but not a single sheet of paper has been preserved.

My next interest appeared in 5th form. All girls started collecting stickers. On the breaks we exchanged them. I remember how that time appeared special sticker albums where we could keep our collections. At some point, I lost interest in exchanging single stickers and started collecting whole sticker sheets. I still have that collection nowadays, and it passed on to my children.

Later, when I studied at gymnasium, I tried to collect different candles, but it bored me quite soon. The next interest appeared when I was at the university. I started collecting glass figurines of animals. This collection is still "alive" and is growing slowly. I continue collecting the figurines, but I don't get the new ones often, for I can find them only in souvenir shops in Estonia or in the gallery of art Murano in Helsinki. I haven't seen them in other places, so if anyone of you can advice me where to find them, please let me know. I will be very grateful.

But I have one more collection. The one that I take more seriously. It is my collection of Christmas-tree ornaments. Every year, before Christmas, I buy several new ornaments. Currently, I have ornaments made of glass, wood, plastic, fabric, paper, alabaster and ceramics.

The idea of collecting Christmas-tree ornaments came two years ago, but I may say, that collection's formation began in 2015. One day I saw beautiful peacocks in one store and I just fell in love with them. Several days I went back and forth admiring them until I could no longer hesitate and then I bought three turquoise peacocks. They were not cheap at all. But I think, exactly those peacocks inspired me to start a collection the next year, for three black peacocks joined the three turquoise ones. And a year after three snow-white swans entered their bird flock. (you can enlarge photos below by clicking on them)

The very same year when I purchased the first peacocks, I also got wooden ornaments. If birds were magnificent, sparkling and festive, the wooden ornaments were very simple, monochromic and rather unremarkable, still, I liked them a lot. That is how I got four wonderful houses and a serie of flat wooden animals: an owl, a fox, a squirrel, a hare and a bird. My collection got itself a wooden section. It also includes a Christmas-tree made by my son in kindergarten. And last year the section entered personalized ornaments for every member of our family from my child's beloved godmother.

Some ornaments came to me from the foreign countries. Aside from ornaments from Finland and Estonia, I also have ornaments from Bulgaria, France, Russia (handmade) and Sweden. 

I also noticed that some of the shapes I have more than the others. For example, I have several horses and quite a lot of owls. Some of them were bought by me, and some were received as a gift.

There are also ornaments on our Christmas-tree made by myself, for I am really fond of handicraft. Unfortunately, there is not so many of them, bacause for the last two years I didn't have time to make the new ones, but I will make more for sure. I started making Christmas-tree ornaments 5 years ago when I took part in one project in my favourite cross-stitching group on FB "Cross-stitching without borders" (it is a Russian group, I translated the name into English). Most of the ornaments I gave away, but some are still left for me. Two ornaments I received as a gift: one is made by my mother-in-law and the other is made by my friend from the mentioned group. The very first handmade ornaments I got when we lived in Estonia, they were made by one very special person. There are also two ornaments made by my son in kindergarten.

As you have already noticed, I like the ornaments of different shapes, not only traditional baubles with Christmas theme. There are some more ornaments from my collection I would like to show you. Some of them I purchased only this year, and some of them I like so much that I cannot leave without showing them.

These are not all my Christmas-tree ornaments, but I think, these are my favourite and memorable. I also wish to find such ornaments as the Nutcracker, airship, samovar, the Hatter and Alice, and of course, Snow-maiden. Unfortunately, I don't have a single Soviet ornament from my chilhood. We had a whole box of different beautiful baubles and other ornaments! Alas, all of them are now broken, except for a couple of cones. My mother promised me to give them next year.

She also suggested me to visit a flea market (kirpputori - it's a Finnish word for "flea market") As soon as I recover from my illness, I will go there in search of some exclusive ornaments. Who knows, maybe I will find my luck there.

This is my story about collecting the Christmas-tree ornaments. Hopefully, you liked it. And what do you collect?

8 comments
  1. Супер! Великолепная коллекция!домики просто вау! А рукодельницы какие! Ручные игрушки — супер-подарки! И деревянные — поделать буду знать! Я коллекционировала календари. Сейчас есть идея каждый год по игрушке собирать и подписывать 🙂

    1. Спасибо! 🙂 Календари — как интересно! А ты маленькие или большие коллекционировала? Или вообще разные?
      Прекрасная идея собирать по игрушке. 🙂

  2. сколько красоты! мы сейчас елку особо не наряжаем, а так я тоже фанат красивых игрушек)

    1. Спасибо! 🙂 Для нас ёлка — это очень важная часть, детки ещё маленькие, для них такой праздник! 🙂 Дочка первый год участвовала в украшении ёлки, после каждой повешенное ею игрушки хлопала в ладоши и говорила:»Ура!» 🙂

  3. Какая прелесть! Я знаю, что тебе подарить теперь 😉

    1. Кстати, у меня тоже для тебя подарочек лежит. 🙂
      Я надеялась, мы увидимся перед праздниками, но, к сожалению, не получилось. Твой подарочек ждёт тебя у нас. По почте не решилась отправлять.

  4. Great post!

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