Every year there is one. One design, drawn and cast in our Fredericton workshop, made in a limited run, and then never made again in that form. Some families have forty of them. Some have one, bought the year a child was born, and hang it first on the tree every December.
This year: A Woodland Christmas
Two woodland birds nestled into a sprig: the cardinal, and the black-capped chickadee, which is New Brunswick's official bird. They perch there with the promise of cozy Canadian fires and a magical holiday for all.
It is $35, and like every year's design, it is made in a limited number.
Where it started: the 12 Days of Christmas
The oldest ornament in our archive is from 1982: a partridge in a pear tree. The years that followed worked through the whole song — two turtle doves and three French hens, then four calling birds, five golden rings and six geese in 1983; seven swans, eight maids and nine drummers in 1984; and the pipers, ladies and lords through 1985. Twelve annual ornaments, one carol.
Those designs never really retired. We still cast the 12 Days, as ornaments and as bells, and you can buy them one at a time or as the full set — which is how most people work through them, one Christmas at a time, the way the original collectors did.
Forty years of designs
After the carol came the series. An East Coast Christmas travelled the provinces — New Brunswick in 2000, Prince Edward Island in 2002, Nova Scotia in 2003. Christmas at Home ran through the mid-2000s, then Starry Night, Winter Wonderland and Atlantic Memories closed out the decade. From 2012 to 2016 we worked through The Nutcracker: the Sugar Plum Fairy, the Toy Maker, the Toy Soldier, Clara and the Prince, and finally the Rat King. Christmas Classics ran six editions from 2017. Recent years have come closer to home again — Victorian Christmas in the City in 2024, and Christ Church Cathedral in 2025.
Filling the gaps
Most people do not start a collection in year one. They start somewhere in the middle and work backwards, and the question we get every December is whether the missing years can still be found.
Often, yes. A number of past editions are still in the shop — the Polar Bear from 2008, Winter Wonderland from 2009, Atlantic Memories from 2010, most of the Nutcracker series, and several of the Christmas Classics. When they are gone they are gone, so the older ones tend to go first.
The register
There is a tradition attached to these: having your ornament reserved for you each year, with a serial number stamped into the piece, and a record kept of which numbers belong to your collection. We will also let you know early when the next year's ornament is ready, before it reaches the shop floor.
If you would like your collection on the register, the annual ornament page explains how it works. The ornaments ship from Fredericton across Canada and well beyond it — there are Aitkens ornaments on trees in Vancouver, Texas, Los Angeles and Michigan.
Starting this year
If you are beginning a collection, there are two honest places to start. Buy this year's — it will be the one your family recognizes years from now as the first. Or start at the beginning, with the partridge, and let the carol give you the next eleven Christmases.
Either way, it is pewter: it will not break if it falls off the tree, and it will still be here for whoever hangs it in fifty years.