Every year I buy Matt and I Christmas ornaments. I started this because we needed to build our tree as a married couple. I have also made my nieces and nephews ornaments every year.

Through this, I have discovered many reasons why I do not like ornaments that can break. I love cloth ornaments that look old fashioned and cozy. I also really like that they make shatter proof Christmas balls now. Here is a good example of why. The first Christmas I had Hans (my cat child) I was really nervous about him knocking over the tree. He was younger, lighter, and more agile back then. Well, he knocked the tree over multiple times as expected, but his next fascination was the kicker. I had purchased clear glass Christmas balls that had blue tinsel in side of them. Hans loved them. He would sweetly bat them around, so I moved them higher up the tree. This did not help. He figured out ways to get them down or he would just resort back to knocking the whole tree over. Next he discovered that if he knocked them down the stairs the fragile glass would break all over the wooden stairs of the apartment and he could freely gnaw on the tinsel till his heart was content. I’ve never bought anything other than the shatterproof ornaments since then. I figure if my cat was this bad, actual children are going to be much worse. So slowly, I’ve been building a collection of ornaments that will not leave tiny glass splinters and shards. As for Hans, he has outgrown this and does not behavior so badly anymore. He big fatty just loves to lay under the tree and sleep, or roll on his back and look up into the lights. Occasionally we’ll catch him or little Sister (Cat number 2) chewing on a low branch, but other than that we haven’t had any complaints.

Here are our ornaments for this year. I like to call them Little Matt and Little Shelby.