Meet the little camel. He’s one of our newest Christmas ornaments.
Several months ago, I talked about our trip to the Middle East and our tradition of buying a piece of street art on big trips. We also buy a Christmas ornament on all of our travels, dating back to 2005 when we picked up a New York ornament on the top of the Empire State Building.
The hunt for an ornament is always really fun. Sometimes we don’t buy a traditional ornament. On a trip to Philadelphia, we bought a keychain and turned it into an ornament because all the Christmas ornaments we saw were too big and bulky.
Our little camel is actually a figurine carved out of camel bone. Camel bone figurines are a popular tourist purchase in Egypt. The store we went to also had angels, stars and other traditional Christmas ornaments carved out of camel bone.
We had to have the camel, it was too cute to pass up. Do you have any Christmas ornament traditions?
Almost Never Clever 
We, too, buy an ornament on all our vacations. It’s fun to decorate the tree and remember the adventures we’ve had. I suppose there’s no shortage of camel bone in Egypt – that’s an unusual way to use up the whole animal! Your little figurine is cute; I can see why he followed you home 🙂
Yes, it is unusual but they do use the whole animal. It’s actually only about an inch and a half tall, so he’s super cute!
We also collect Christmas ornaments when we travel! We got a camel in Dubai! I have pictures here! http://kelocity.com/2010/12/03/christmas-tree-time/
Yup! You mentioned it to me when I first got back from the trip! Dubai is on my list of places to go!
I love to pick up ornaments on my travels. I don’t have anything as unique as a camel bone but I do love the totem figure I picked up in Santa Fe many years ago. It’s always a trip down memory lane as I unpack the ornaments every year. One of my favorite Christmas activities. 🙂
I don’t think it matters what it is as long as it reminds you of your trip. The ornament we got in Paris was the kitchyest touristy thing known to man but we love it!
We have kids so our tree is full of handmade and kid oriented ornaments. We started the tradition of picking up magnets from the places we travel.
With all the Star Wars on our tree, you’d think a kid lived at our house.