Since November just began we have tried to get some Christmas things up on our shop. I know, I know, it isn’t December yet! But we wanted to get them up sooner rather than later (we have some Thanksgiving things up too!) and I wanted to share the story of our gingerbread man ornaments with you.
One Christmas many years ago when I was very very young Lisa (my mom) lost her job. This was a huge blow to our family and Christmas was looking pretty bare that year. For our family Christmas is extremely important and we have a long list of traditions that we stick to every year, we also come up with at least one new tradition each year. One of the traditions that we have is to buy a few new ornaments for our tree, usually Dennis and Lisa buy each of us kids an ornament and then a few for the family. But this specific year we could not afford ornaments and Lisa was extremely upset about it so Dennis decided to make his own ornaments for us.
Eventually Dennis came up with the idea of these gingerbread men, and so he set out to make them. He drew, cut, and painted them by hand and tried to give each one a little character. I mean, check out the sleepy gingerbread man with the butt flap! He even cut out a few extras that Jessica and I could paint and make our very own.
The next year our family was back on our feet but we loved Dennis’ ornaments from the year before so much that he decided to try to make a few more for that year. The idea of doing birds came about because we live in the country and have a lot of little bird visitors in the winter. Dennis is a bird watcher and four of his favorites are the cardinal, blue bird, and blue jay so that is why we only have those four as ornaments (for now!). These are also completely handmade by Dennis and they also mean a lot to our family.
We wanted to share our family memories with everyone and that is why we have decided to add them to our shop. We tried to make them affordable because we know life is hard and we believe everyone should have a decorated tree for their holidays!
Stop by our page and check them out! Don’t forget to comment and let us know what you think!
Cherished Cottage 