The best travel souvenirs...
My husband and I have always loved traveling, and it was something we did early on.
When he decided to propose, the proposal was preceded by a surprise, flight destination unknown (to me), trip to San Francisco to do so.
When we got married, we had a destination wedding; getting married in a small village in Scotland, followed by a honeymoon of traipsing around Italy for two weeks at our leisure to see the sights of Florence, Venice and Rome....
A year later, when we found ourselves new parents of twins, we still traveled. The twins' first year saw us taking them with us to Hawaii and then taking them on a 3,000 mile cross country road trip from CA to FL. I guess you could say the very best souvenir we ever came home with was the twins from that honeymoon trip, but as far as tangible souvenirs go, we started buying something every trip...beginning with that trip to San Francisco when we got engaged...
Christmas ornaments.
Christmas ornaments make a great souvenir, whether you are married or single because...
1. They are small, easily packable and take up very little space.
2. Unlike a picture, clothing item, or other souvenir that you might grow tired of, may go out of style, or out of favor, Christmas ornaments are always timeless.
3. They are, for the most part, very economical.
4. Single or married, house or apartment, doesn't matter.
My favorite part about having started this tradition is every year when we decorate our tree, it becomes a tree of memories and a lovely out of the box, instant reminder of our travels. Here are a few of my favorite ornaments I have collected from my travels over the years...
Trip to Paris, 2011, Marie Antoinette, and a (French) Men's shoe, from Versailles
San Francisco Trolley. We go there often as it is a special town to us, but this one was picked up on our trip in 2005. We took our daughter, then 18 months, with us. Her first airplane trip.
Napoleon and Josephine, Paris Trip, May 2012. My two year old makes then "kiss", then laughs and runs away.
This year, Marie, Queen Elizabeth, Napoleon and Josephine were joined by Mozart; a souvenir my husband picked up at the Mozart Museum in Austria while he was there in October. Being that I am working on a second Master's in History, I do love all these little historical people!
Our tree has ornaments from trips to England, Scotland, Italy, France, Austria, Germany, South America and more and also most of our domestic trips with the kids. (A favorite is Santa in a Hawaiian shirt paddling a canoe). It's funny the ones we forget about until we start decorating the tree and the ornament always prompts one of us to say "I remember that trip".... Next time you are on a trip; be sure to pick up a Christmas ornament. It's never too late to start a tradition.
Merry Christmas!
