If you're pulling your hair out trying to find ornaments that work for kids, check out Gifts for Christmas that's pretty much a one-stop shop for ornaments for kids and all sorts of unique niche ornament Christmas gifts.

They have teen ornaments, as well as ornaments for kids all the way down to toddlers.

You will not find kids ornaments below toddler, but you can find Sesame Street ornaments for kids between around 2 years old up through 10ish. Then, they also have kids Christmas ornaments for the tween set like musical instruments ornaments, sports ornaments and others age appropriate for kids activities. (more...)

Hooray! I love shopping for my kids, particularly at Christmastime. It's like anything else, when you get there it's absolutely fabulous, but the anticipation of getting there, the voyage and adventure itself is at least half the fun!

One of my all-time favorite things to buy are sports ornaments personalized for my kids. Each little sports ornament celebrates some accomplishment they achieved that year. I love to look back over the tree at all the memories, each ornament reminding me of a truly special moment in our kids' lives.

My eldest son has a football ornament, a baseball ornament for each championship win, and a tennis ornament won at our Country Club. My daughter has a swimming ornament from the Fourth of July competition, and my youngest has a volleyball and lacrosse ornament. (more...)

You know, there are a lot of ways to track Santa, and I thought I'd spend a moment to discuss the various options that we've had fun with over the years.

The most popular is tracking Santa over the internet. Mymerrychristmas.com has a wonderful Santa tracker, with lots of fun graphics and a great way for the kids not only to feel good using the computer, but also to celebrate the holidays. It's something we can all do together. And more importantly, since Santa has to travel daily, his position on the map always changes, so it contributes to the build up of excitement throughout the holiday season after Thanksgiving.

Consider starting a tradition in your family by tracking ol' Saint Nick. You can also throw in ideas about the places he stops. For example, consider asking your children what Santa might be giving the children in Bangladesh, or Hawaii, or Iceland. You can bring in all sorts of cultural topics. Look up that place on the internet with your kids, and find some cool things to look at, talk about, and learn from. (more...)

There's no better way to decorate your Christmas tree than with ornaments that mean something to you. Beyond just decorations, our ornaments are a cross between a woman's fine jewelry and her best scrapbook full of the kids' pictures.

I'm still struggling to find a good analogy, because just about nothing compares to the value of my personalized family Christmas ornaments that my husband and I have collected over the years. Seriously, when I took out our family ornaments this year, I realized that I was looking at over a decade of beautiful memories we have enjoyed with our wonderful three kids.

There are couples ornaments for our childless years, and then the first our first Christmas ornament when Thomas came along. Then Suzie, and finally Rodger. The family of three ornaments are our most treasured, as they each have some theme from a family trip we took that year. (more...)

OK, I've received more than a few dozen requests about ornaments that mark the beginning of a family. I've written about our first Christmas ornaments and family ornaments, so I realized it's about time to talk about pregnant and expecting ornaments.

On the web, both appear to be about the same. If you search for expecting ornament ideas you'll get a broader search than specifically pregnant ornaments, for example. Play around with various combinations, and you'll get quite a few different sites, each of which offers unique ornaments for expecting mothers.

I would highly recommend getting a personalized exepcting ornament. You can put mom's name, the year, the baby-to-be's name, and sometimes even the due date. It's a great way to capture that magical moment in the life of a new family. (more...)