The Boylas Christmas Tree

I understand that some people/families have "themed" Christmas trees. I only know this from what I see in Macy's commercials or Better Homes & Gardens magazines - red and white trees, trees with seashells and starfishes, pink Christmas trees with white lights, and the like. Our tree is themed, but not nearly so clever. The Boylas family tree, (and for those of you who do not know, Boylas is a combination of Neil and Dorothy's last name and my last name - Boyer and Douglas), is like scrapbook of our lives. In high school I started getting my family members a new ornament every year; this is a tradition that I carried on with my "new" family in adulthood. When we travel to interesting places, I usually make sure to pick up an ornament as well. Here are pictures of some of our ornaments. (I know, who wants to look at Christmas trees in January; I definitely got behind on this post!)

I made this ornament for Neil in 2011 - the year that we had our wonderful windows installed. I got an unpainted window at a dollhouse shop in Salisbury, MA; painted the window and then printed a picture of our river. The best complement was that Neil thought it was professionally made. 

I already posted about this on Facebook. I got this ornament in 1983 from my third grade teacher, then-Debra Swinson, now-Andrews. I have had it on my tree annually ever since.

I made this ornament for Dorothy the year that she lived in Holland/The Netherlands-2005. I printed the map of Rotterdam in the back; the paper Euros and the umbrella are scrap booking materials, and using clay, I made the wooden shoes and the tulip.

In 2007, Dorothy was a summer intern at the Journal Tribune in Biddeford, ME. This ornament commemorates that experience. 

I am a Jimmy Carter nut. I have visited Plains, Georgia 3 times (yes, count them...3 times!) and the Carter Center in Atlanta once. This ornament is from 2005, I believe. 

As a child, I loved pigs. My mother got me a set of pig ornaments when I was little and I still have them.

This is an ear of corn. I got it for Neil in 2010, the year that we visit the plain states - Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota.

I always get an ornament of the places I have worked. I worked at UNH from 2002-2006.

I ran a girl scout troop from 1998-2004. I made ornaments for the girls every year. Dorothy still has them all.

This commemorates the year that I joined the Seacoast Wind Ensemble 2010-2011. 

Neil and Dorothy insist that I hang my marathon medals on our Christmas trees. This is from my first marathon in 2007.

I visited Mt. Rainier in 2005.

These are our most precious ornaments - the wedding ornaments. The year that we were married, 1997, I sent our wedding pictures to Jan Darling in Dayton, ME who had a business called Little Darlings. She made these ornaments for us. We love them!

We have many Magic of Christmas ornaments on our tree, because Neil has played  more than 30 of them!

My sister had a friend in junior high school, Laurie, who was hit by a drunk driver and died when she was 13. Laurie made this ornament and I place it on my tree every year.

Our 10th wedding anniversary - 2007.

Our first few Christmases we lived in Old Orchard Beach and didn't have a lot of extra cash. I got seashells from the beach one year and hung them with dental floss. I keep this one on the tree every year as a reminder.

In 2005, Neil and I took a trip that was to "places that were significant in our youth." We visited Canal Fulton, OH (where my father was raised and where I visited as a child), Elberfeld, IN (where Neil's grandparents lived for a while and he visited them as a teenager), and Cumberland Falls State Park in southern Kentucky (a place that Neil has always loved; his father worked in the coal mines in nearby Stearns and his mother, who died in her 20s, is buried there as well).

This year's ornament for Neil - a falling down house, to commemorate all of  the falling down houses that we have seen, mourned, and photographed in Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, and Idaho.