Every year, Eric and I get the kids their own special ornament. We try to find something special that reminds us of them. For example, this year Marlee got a play kitchen ornament because that's what she has played with literally all year long! With this being Rowan's first Christmas we wanted to get him something special too! The thing we decided on was to get him a baby! After all he is our sweet baby! :) So I was so excited when I went into the huge Christmas Ornament store to pick him out the perfect ornament. This particular store is known for having really cool ornaments and personalizing them with names and the date.Side note, another thing that Eric and I do every year is get a family ornament. That way, when the kids grow up and take all of their ornaments we will have something left to put on our tree. :)
As I walked into the store and scanned the ornaments my smile and excitement quickly turned to sadness. I was sad because out of the hundreds of ornaments that they offered, all of the people in EVERY.SINGLE.ORNAMENT. was white. In case you don't know me, this isn't what my family looks like. Eric and I are both white, but we have two beautiful black babies. I walked around the entire store and scanned every little ornament and found nothing.
Luckily my husband ended up calling at the PERFECT time saying that he had a surprise for me in the car (It was Starbucks of course) so that diffused the situation a little, or at least kept me from falling a part in their happy little store. I also ran into my sister in the store and explained everything to her and so we decided that we would get the same ornament.
There are times like these when it really sinks in that we live in a society that thinks mostly white. If you don't believe me, the next time you go to Walmart or Target take a look in the Barbie Aisle or the baby doll aisle. What color are the majority of the babies?
Please hear me. I'm not saying my daughter won't ever play with a white baby doll or that my son won't have little white action figures. It just hurts a little to walk down the aisle with them and only see a few out of hundreds of babies, barbies, or action figures that look like them. It also makes me wonder what's going on inside the head of my precious daughter. She hears all the time that she is so beautiful and special, yet she walks down the aisle to see all of these adorable babies and beautiful barbies that don't even share the same skin color as her. It just confirms that my job is so important as a mom to make sure that she knows WHO created her and that no matter what society or anyone thinks or says, she was fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:14
Although this was such a deep, tough thing to go through we were still able to find the perfect ornament for our sweet Rowan! :) I purchased this from Etsy and the artist did an amazing job! :) JCB Design Studio!
