Tag: tradition

Remembering Ninja with our 2025 Homemade Christmas Ornament

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When Brandi moved in she brought her black cat, Ninja, with her. I wasn’t too sure about him because I’d never liked cats. With my job working from home, he quickly became my little buddy and turned me in to a cat guy.

Ninja got sick and we lost him at the end of August, which was really hard. 😿 He was such a good kitty! The vet sent us a sympathy card with his paw print.

Since holidays are always a good time to remember, we decided to preserve the card in this year’s Christmas ornament and we’ll always have it. Brandi wants to start learning to use some of the tools in the shop, and she got to use the band saw, scroll saw, and sanders while helping to make the frame.

Check out our previous ornaments from 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Homemade Christmas Ornaments – 2024

Nick Momrik3 Comments

At the Beloved resort in Playa Mujeres (just north of Cancun) Brandi and I went to an activity where we each made an Ojo de Dios, which is Spanish for God’s eye. We’re busy with all kinds of projects at the new house, so we’re using these as our homemade ornaments for this year.

Check out our creations from 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Homemade Christmas Ornaments – 2023

Nick Momrik3 Comments

After getting married in October, of course we were going to center our ornament around that this year. We took some leftover pieces that didn’t get used for the kitchen backsplash, glued two together, cut it to size, rounded the corners, softened the edges, and added a couple of screw eyes.

We bought two different colors (hard to tell in this photo) of twine and tied a square knot. Obvious symbolism.

After having a Cricut for almost two years, we finally cut vinyl on it.

A little super glue gel to attach the knot.

Then we sprayed three coats of lacquer to help set it and hopefully hold on to the vinyl better.

We also have some bonus ornaments this year. I drilled a hole through one of the golf balls Brandi had made for some twine. The other two were Huichol art we did on our honeymoon in Playa Mujeres. Can you guess who did which one?

Making ornaments is a yearly tradition for us. Check out 2021 and 2022.

Homemade Christmas Ornament – 2022

Nick Momrik4 Comments

Our second Christmas means our second ornament (see 2021). It was a year full of Star Wars, from watching everything in order to building a lot of LEGO sets (The Child). So for this year’s ornament we made a model of a panel that you might find next to a spaceship door.

The main building materials were polystyrene and plastic cement from Hobby Lobby and I already had an assortment of paints (spray cans and acrylics). As we were getting started, I pulled out a bin of random plastic parts we might be able to incorporate, but they were all too big. Brandi asked if we had any extra LEGO pieces. We sure did, so we used some of those.

I forgot to get a picture during the initial assembly, but here’s the piece after a coat of gray primer.

Then it was all about adding colors. The delicate type of painter’s tape was used when masking off areas was needed. Little bits of color here and there made each area stand out.

A few coats of spray lacquer locked in the painting done so far. It looked too crisp and new at that point though. Weathering with acrylic paints was the final step and made it look like a real thing that had been used and abused.

After final coats of spray lacquer we hung it up.

If you’re like to learn how to do panel modeling like this, I highly recommend checking out Adam Savage Demonstrates Miniature Spaceship Paneling or Adam Savage’s One Day Builds: Kit-Bashing and Scratch-Building on YouTube.

Homemade Christmas Ornament – 2021

Nick Momrik6 Comments

Brandi and I are starting a yearly tradition to make an ornament based on something from our year. 2021 was filled with a lot of home remodeling (to her house which is up for sale and our house still being worked on), so I thought it would be neat to make a mini pallet wood wall. It was a team effort and turned out pretty cool.

Christmas Tradition

Nick MomrikLeave a comment

Every year on Christmas Eve we have a tradition that we follow. Around 5:00 we start off with crab legs for supper. After everything is cleaned up, we open our stockings. For the past few years dad has been in charge of the stocking stuffers and we have a little joke with it. He goes to the dollar store and picks up cheap little things and usually a few lotto tickets. A few examples of things people have gotten in recent years are:

  • Small flashlight
  • Batteries
  • Packs of gum
  • Car air fresheners
  • Socks

We always have fun laughing about what everyone gets, even though some of the things are pretty useful.

We then go to church for 8:00 mass. After church, we take a drive around town and look at some lights and luminaries. What are luminaries? Let me explain…on Christmas Eve a lot of people light candles inside of old milk jugs (or other types of containers) and line them up on the street in front of their house. Every year they look the same, but for some reason we always have to drive by.

Once we get home from church, everyone changes into something comfortable and we usually make a few drinks. Then it’s time to exhange gifts, which takes us about an hour and a half. By the time we get done with presents, dad will be falling asleep and Isaac and I will either be ready to play a new video game or watch a movie.

On Christmas day we always get together with the Tatros (Mom’s family) to eat, play cards, and enjoy the holiday. This year everyone is coming over to our house, so we have to be the entertainers. I suppose we’ll play some Texas Hold’em, since everyone has fallen in love with the game.

The day after Christmas (26th) is of course MY BIRTHDAY, but we’ve never really done anything special for it. It’s really not a big deal to me. I guess this year on the 27th we are heading over to Alpena to get together with Dad’s family and are having a poker tournament over there. It’ll be interesting to see how they run it, since all of the tournaments I’ve been in so far were run by me.

I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Christmas with their families!