My husband and I were lucky enough to travel quite a bit before we had kids. We lived in Scotland for five years, which made traveling to other countries easy and very affordable. Over the five years, we traveled to 16 counties together. (I actually got to 17. I was lucky enough to go to Denmark with my grandma when she came to visit!

During each of our trips, we made sure to take in all the sights and eat the local cuisine. Our first trip was to Paris, France during Christmas.  It was our first year of marriage , and we knew we couldn’t afford to fly back to the States. We found cheap, cheap flights to Paris and decided that is where we would celebrate the holiday. During a stop at a souvenir shop, we found a rack of ornaments and picked up Santa on his sleigh riding around the Eiffel Tower as a memento. 

Our next trip was to Dublin, Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day. Again, we stopped in a souvenir shop and found a Christmas ornament of a leprechaun sitting on a sheep. It was there that the tradition started.  We were sitting in a local pub having a pint, when I told my hubby we should buy an ornament in every country we visit. I had one stipulation; the ornament had to be representative of the country.  And that was it, how hard could it be?  The first two were so easy!

Some countries were really easy, and some countries were extremely difficult. I think the hardest was Spain. We were in Barcelona, and must have wandered up and down Las Ramblas 50 times, going in the every souvenir shop multiple times.  I just couldn’t figure out which one to pick. Let’s just say we ended up with a knick-knack of a bull that we had to turn into an ornament with some glue and string!

Can you guess where the ornaments came from? 

Abocve is a photo of eight ornaments we picked up along our travels. Match them up with the corresponding country for a chance to win a prize!  Email your answers to ndhorizons@btinet.net for a chance to win a 2017 North Dakota Horizons scenic calendar.

Country Bank (3 Extras): Sweden, Germany, Turkey, Spain, Netherlands, Norway, England, Egypt, Italy, Switzerland, Greece

All replies with the correct answers will be entered into a drawing. A winner will be picked at random on Tuesday, December 27.