I’m kind of a Christmas ornament junkie. I blame this on the years I worked at Hallmark in high school and college. I like to get a new ornament for our tree every year, (in addition to the ornaments I get for the children, to build up their own collection to take with them when they move out someday), often as part of a series. Most recently, I completed the “Doorways Around the World” collection from Hallmark. Sadly, though, this was only a four-year series, and so I’ve been looking for a new series of ornaments for the tree.

Luckily for me, Hallmark started a new collection this year that appealed to me: “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” As the name suggests, each year’s ornament will showcase one of the days from the song, starting with the famous partridge, (complete with pear), this year. I think this will be a fun thing to look forward to every year, but then I started thinking about just how long it will take to get all of them. It’s simple math–12 Days of Christmas, one per year–so not hard to figure out. What I wasn’t expecting, however, was to realize just how old my children will be by the time I get to the drummers drumming!

Turkey will be 19–almost 20! And that means Bunny will be 18, Moose 17, and Ladybug 15. And I’m not even going to think about how old the unborn Chickadee will be–I refuse to think of her as anything other than a tiny baby!

Yes, I will look forward to building this collection of ornaments, but I’m in no hurry to get to the end. I’ll be happy to take it one long year at a time, in the hopes that maybe my children might slow down their growing up just a bit!