Hi guys!!! My does it feel weird to make a blog post now, and wow does it feel even weirder to make a Christmas post in July!! I can’t remember the last time I made a From The Box post, it’s been AWHILE!!! All of my current posts have either been news related or sale related, so it’s refreshing at least for me to make a regular, old school My Xpressions post!

I wanted to showcase my P Christmas bracelet back in December of last year but of course, I ran out of time. I had discovered the list of the after Christmas sale and I was under a time crunch, do I post about my bracelet or do I post the sale list? I opted for the sale list in order to help anyone out there better plan their purchases. Some of you then said I should still post my bracelet in January, but I was burned out a little as most of you all probably were too, so then I waited and waited and because Tink Pandora from Instagram posted her six months before Halloween post back in April, I remembered that a lot of retailers like to have Christmas in July sales so here is my Christmas in July post!

So I started posting my Christmas bracelet back in 2015, almost on a dare. I was speaking with Jiji and another friend about themed bracelets, and she mentioned how she was excited to wear her Halloween bracelet, I had told her I kind of wanted to start a Christmas bracelet, but didn’t think I had enough charms. Later that day I went home and lo and behold in my excitement to acquire soon to be retired charms I actually quite a few Christmas charms and so I started my first Christmas bracelet. Here is the original post if you want to read it.

In 2016 I posted my now 3/4 full Christmas bracelet once again. I had removed some of my stand in’s from other bracelets and it was a more dedicated Christmas bracelet by then. Here is the original post.

Now it’s 2017 and my love for the brand is still going full force!! At this point I had had to remove my Black Friday charms from the original Christmas bracelet and had to migrate them onto an open bangle, leaving me with quite some room once again to fill up the now empty spaces on my bracelet. I really think this is when my bracelet really started to take form.

Now 2018 is rolling around and I think this is my favorite incarnation of my Christmas bracelet. I had once again purchased the Black Friday charm and it made my open bangle symmetrical again. I also replaced the rock star clips with the floral lace daisy clips and I really really liked them there. They were meant to be another stand in but because they reminded me of cut out paper snowflakes I just left them there and they have become a permanent fixture on my Christmas bracelet. I had also added the sparkling gift charm and rearranged everything. I think I still had quite some empty spaces on my bracelet which is why I added some green muranos and ruby red spacers. I think to date that post is my most pinned and popular blog post on Pinterest which makes me happy!

 

I think this is the last year where I added some more Christmas charms and I off centered the bracelet again. This is also the last year where I liked anything from the Christmas collection, I don’t think I bought anything from the 2019 collection because I didn’t post anything December 2019 which means the bracelet didn’t change.

Then 2020 happened and well, everything went to hell LOL. I didn’t post much, I had lost my Instagram account and was further disillusioned with the brand because of it, and once again there was no change to the bracelet. Same thing with 2021. Now that I’m writing about it, I hadn’t realized that I had gone so long without updating my Christmas bracelet. I guess the only Christmas charms I was still buying at this point were the Black Friday charms.

And now is where I get to actually start talking about my bracelet in it’s current state, how I typically wear it, and my future plans for it! Here is what my bracelet looks like now:

I’ve realized that there are a couple of charms that I can probably remove. They are placeholders, or at that time, charms that I thought would go or I liked back then, but they don’t hold much meaning. I simply thought they were cute so I bought them. Also I haven’t decided whether I want each charm to be meaningful or if I want charms that are cute, which is where my dilemma lies. For startes, lets start with the beginning of the bracelet.

Here we have the bow, and the snowman. The bow was never supposed to be part of this bracelet, I might have needed a charm to balance it out once upon a time or it was an orphan bead. I do know now that it was an impulse buy, I thought it looked cute on a chain and I was influenced by someone back then who didn’t have my best interests at heart so this bead can totally go. The meaning I attached to this charm was it was supposed to represent the bows we use for gifts but again, I have the sparkling gift charm as the focal point already so I don’t think I really need this charm at all.

The snowman I bought just because I thought he was cute, there is no meaning to it. The first snowman I ever made with my litle sister was up in the Arrowhead mountains in the middle of summer so definitely not a needed charm for my Christmas bracelet.

Now we go all the way to the other side of the bracelet for other charms that are a bit redundant:

So everyone by now knows that I love anything celestial, so I always gravitate towards angels. Do I really need three angels on one bracelet? This side of the bracelet for me is the reason for the season, it represents the birth of Christ and my faith. We have the star dangle as the star that heralded His birth, then an angel charm, they Holy Family, another angel, the two tone drum which I love and then the Silent Night charm and another angel and star charm LOL. I’m sure I can move some of these off and onto another place. So far it seems like I might be starting a third Christmas bracelet if I do that!!

Here is what the bracelet looks like:

Once again it’s off kilter, I wonder what it will look like once I start messing with it again. Next is what I’ve done with my Black Friday charms:

I realize the center Christmas tree is not a Black Friday charm, I vowed I would never buy another Christmas tree charm but I really liked this one like A LOT so I bought it last year and stuck on here to make it symmetrical LOL. This is how I would wear it if I remove it:

It’s not horrible, but if I continue to buy the Black Friday charms depending if it’s a dangle or not, I don’t know where it will be going. And with the exception of the Christmas tree charm, I really want to keep it only with Black Friday charms if possible. Next is my way of adding color when I wear these two bracelets together:

So I will usually grab just the red or just the green and I’ll have three bracelets total, the Black Friday open bangle, the original Christmas bracelet, and then a pop of color. If I were thinner I could probably wear all four but that’s not happening any time soon LOL!

So there you have it!! What I typically wear once the Holiday season is upon us! The fun part for me now is, figuring out which charms will go, which ones will be re-arranged if any, and which ones will be sold! I have to be careful though as once they are sold they are gone for good! Don’t worry, I will make sure I finalize everything before I consider selling anything. I have to say making this blog post was fun! I will most likely repost this in December with the finished result! What do you think of my bracelet? Do you think I should remove some of the redundant charms to make room for new ones? Do you have a Christmas bracelet as well? Let me know in the comments below!