The keepsake ornaments you put on your Christmas tree can document memories for years to come. When I purchased my very first Christmas tree as an adult, I simply bought glass ornaments to make a pretty tree. But that changed one year, when I saw a flying pig ornament. I quickly purchased the ornament, and smiled inside when I placed it on my Christmas tree for the memory it brought to me.
That Christmas ornament was a flying pig. Its significance may make you smile a bit too. The back story on the flying pig isn’t about a wild ride on a Harley. You see, my college career was abruptly halted when I received a late night call that my dad was in ICU at the hospital back in Waco. The next morning, doctors gave me the horrifying news that cancer was eating away my dad’s brain and he would die within a six months. My dad died five months and three weeks later.
After a couple of years, I finally decided I was ready to go back to college. But without any support system, I was having to work more than part-time, and yet study enough to pass Biochemistry courses at Texas A&M University. Each month, I cried and worried if I could do it long enough to get that coveted college degree. 28 months later, when graduation day came, I wrote on my graduation cap “PIGS DO FLY!”
Flying pigs have become a special symbol to me that all things are possible! However, as I began adding flying pig ornaments and then other flying animals, my Christmas tree became overloaded with angel pigs, then angel sheep, then angel cows, angel dogs, and any winged animal — my friends began calling my Christmas tree “the dead animal tree.”
But once I married and became a mom through the miracle of adoption, the ornaments on our Christmas tree began to tell a different story – a magical story of hope, love and family memories.
Some of my favorite memories are told through the ornaments on our Christmas tree.
The deer eye bracelet on my LilBit’s wrist when he was placed with us, along with Baby’s First Christmas.
And our Forever Home keepsake ornament from Hallmark after the eventual adoption of our LilBit.
This week, I want bless other families that have adopted in the past couple of years with a giveaway for Hallmark keepsake ornaments commemorating adoption – one keepsake ornament for families blessed by adoption in 2015, and another keepsake ornament for families that adopted this year in 2016.
Please share with anyone that you know has adopted! Just enter in the Rafflecopter app below.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Disclosure: I purchased these ornaments with my own money and this giveaway is not affiliated with Hallmark. Giveaway limited to those in the US.
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