Works for Me Wednesday: Buying Christmas Ornaments

It has taken me awhile to accumulate a Christmas ornament collection. I bought lots of glass ball-type ornaments when I was in college to fill a fake tree my roommates and I had. They were cheap, and they filled the tree.

When I got married, my mom gave me a few ornaments from our collection growing up. My mother-in-law also gave us a few ornaments from her collection. But it takes a lot of ornaments to fill a tree well, in my opinion! And ornaments break over the years, especially when you have kids in the house. So I've started practicing 2 key shopping tactics to help my Christmas tree predicament.

Tactic #1.
Whenever traveling to a new place, I look for a Christmas ornament. I look hard sometimes, seeking out specific stores or local markets. I enjoy opening up our ornament boxes each year and remembering our travels, and our tree has a lot of variety on it because of this. My favorites are our wooden violin ornament from Austria, hand-painted wooden ornaments from Germany, "Mele Kalikimaka" kukui nut ornament from Hawaii, and seashell ornament from St. John. If possible, I use a fine tip Sharpie marker to mark the back of each ornament with the city/country of origin and year of travel.

Tactic #2.
I look for ornaments on December 26. Each year I go out shopping early in the morning on December 26, scouting out 50%-75% sales and buying wrapping paper, ribbon, and other assorted Christmas items for the following year. Craft stores are a great source for unique ornaments at reasonable prices, so I always look at Michaels or AC Moore to try to find something I'd like to add to my Christmas tree.

What works for you in this department? Leave us a comment to share your ideas.