The Most Creative Ornament of 2009

Around this time last year, a friend of mine hosted a Christmas tree ornament party. Every person/couple who attends the party has to bring a homemade ornament to the party. The hosts select their favorites within several different categories and put those ornaments on the tree; the rest are auctioned off to the attendees, with the funds raised going to charity. It’s a great idea for a party, one I hope to replicate someday.

As you can see in this entry from last year, I won “Most Creative” in 2008. The “Best in Show” ornament was a beautiful replica of a church, complete with internal illumination and a stain-glass window.

This year I set out to win Best in Show, but going into the evening, I was worried that I had come up short. I was really happy with the concept I had thought of, but my execution was lacking. I’ll let you see it for yourself before I explain.

It’s a thumb. Specifically, a thumb drive. I whittled a piece of wood so that it would hopefully resemble a thumb, and then I painted the “fingernail” with nail polish. Then I glued a thumb drive to the end of it and saved photos from last year’s ornament party on the drive. The idea is to create a lasting legacy of great ornaments that you save on the drive every year. Plus you have a thumb hanging from your tree.

Did I win Best in Show? Nope. But I did win Most Creative again! A two-peat!

I also realized that I don’t want to win Best in Show. Well, okay, I do, but the best in show ornaments both years looked like normal ornaments that you’d hang on your tree. Very nice ornaments, per se, but not with much of a story behind them.

I guess my next goal would be to create a classic-looking ornament that has a story behind it. That’s my goal for 2010. Any ideas?

0 thoughts on “The Most Creative Ornament of 2009”

  1. Make the ornament now. Whatever design you can think of, but it needs to be able to contain a sheet of paper. Then, write a very short story over the next year, and incorporate the ornament into it (maybe the paper contained in the story ornament has a map or a picture in it). Print the story on one side of the paper, and the image as described on the other side. That way there’s a story ABOUT the ornament, and in the ornament, and the sheet brings the recipient into the story.

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  2. that is the longest thumb I have ever seen. Go back to the smoke detector ornament idea of last year.. I’d like to see that one. Every firefighter would promote that ornament.

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