Personalized Christmas ornament

There is nothing better than receiving a Christmas present that is personal and unique. It is entirely too easy to hit the malls and purchase something that a million other people have purchased for someone else as well. That's not personal - that's just shopping. Several years ago, I had just had my daughter and was on such a tight budget. I had only about $50 available for buying Christmas presents for my friends and family and a list of about 20 people that I needed to gift a gift too. After whining about that for a week, I decided to use my artistic abilities and make presents. I was going to make a personalized Christmas ornament for everyone on my list. Now, I just needed to come up with a theme for each person. Somehow, I was going to create a personalized Christmas ornament for each person to let them know that they are special to me. I used the $50 to get all of the supplies that I would need - the glitter, paint, plain balls, brushes and sponges.

I got a babysitter one afternoon and sat down to make my personalized Christmas ornaments for everyone. I had made a list of things that I knew about everyone on my list and would make a theme out of that. One of my cousins had recently had a baby boy. I made her personalized Christmas ornament with a blue baby theme. I put the year, her son's name and painted some rattles on it. With a touch of glitter, it looked elegant. My sister had just gotten engaged and moved in with her fiancé, so their personalized Christmas ornament had their names on it, with the year, and mistletoe and hearts. I had some relatives that didn't have any major milestones in the past year, so I simply made their personalized Christmas ornament with designs and unique patterns. My entire point was to make everyone's different.

When I gave out my handmade gifts on Christmas morning and everyone received their personalized Christmas ornament, there were many hugs and thanks. My inexpensive but meaningful ornaments had been a big hit. I was afraid that I would feel bad about not being able to get people a "real" gift, but I realized after the fact, that a "real" gift is something that comes from the heart.

You can make a personalized Christmas ornament out of just about anything. You can do like I did, and buy plain balls and decorate them. You could use old Christmas cards and cut out the pictures, make a child's snowflake from construction paper - almost anything you can imagine. No matter what you come up with to make a personalized Christmas ornament, it'll be something that either you or the recipient will remember and cherish for years to come.