One of my favorite things about running races are the goodies you get at the finish line. I’ve gotten a few heavy-duty, beautiful medals from some of the races I’ve ran. I have yet to come up with a great way to display these medals, so I’ve been stuffing them in a box thinking one day I will do something special with them. And you might guess what happens, the day the medal lands in that box it never sees the light of day again. This year I got one of my coolest medals to date at the Fargo Half Marathon; it is a replica of the iconic Fargo Theater sign. As I dusted off my old box it felt like a darn shame to hide that medal in a box, especially after how hard I worked to train for the race. It wasn’t a few days later than I read a caption on a Young House Love Instagram photo about how they hang medals on their Christmas tree. Brilliant! I could already envision how the Christmas lights would glisten off of the medal. I grabbed the medal box and immediately transferred it into our Christmas tote (because who are we kidding, this idea would be forgotten two days later if I hadn’t moved it as a reminder). So this year as I pulled out all the Christmas tote full of tree ornaments, I saw the box and got excited to try it out.
I grabbed all my medals and a scissors. I then simply cut the ribbon at the base of the medal where it was attached. I just had to make a small snip to detach the medal.
Some of the ribbons are pretty cool, so I didn’t want to damage them. I saved all the ribbons in case I want to do something special with them one day; but if we are going to be honest, I’m guessing those ribbons will be in the same box the medals were in never seeing the light of day until years down the road I just decide it’s finally time to toss them. I always have a fear that I will come up with a great idea for something right after I throw it, so I usually hang on to things for too long…did I just classify myself as a hoarder? Anywho…
Next I simply inserted a tree ornament hanger where the ribbon had been attached and hung them on the tree. It was fun to see all the medals glistening on the Christmas tree. A lot of sweat and hard work went into this medal, it is the one and only full marathon I’ve ever ran. I feel as though I might eventually run another, but for right now I’ll just gaze at this one.
The thing about race medals are sometimes they are HEAVY. So I had to hang them deeper in the tree so it was hanging on a more substantial branch, I don’t think the end of a branch would have supported some of them.
If you have your medals tucked away for nobody to see I highly recommend trying this! They look so good on the tree and the Christmas lights really accent them. Plus it will be fun to pull them out once a year and think back to all the races and memories. Here is a little walk down memory lane of some of my favorite finisher photos.
(Top Left: 2008 Full Marathon – You can see I’m trying to smile through the pain, but finishing 26.2 miles without walking felt GREAT. Top Right: Five months after having my first baby I ran the Fargo Half Marathon and my husband had the big head sign in the crowd to cheer me on. Bottom Left: I ran the Twin Cities 10K and Tate competed in the Diaper Dash … cutest thing ever. Bottom Right: My running partner and I ran another Fargo Half Marathon, this time we gave ourselves 9 months after having a baby).
And if you don’t have any race medals, I’d highly recommend entering a race. I wrote 5 Reasons to Run a 5K if you need more convincing.
(If you like it, pin it)
Beth Kondrick says
This is such a fun idea, I have a small collection of medals too and am starting to run out of places to put them, I love the idea of hanging them on the tree!
Kristin says
I saw a tree like this a couple days ago and I thought it was brilliant! Very smart!
ResoundingYou says
This is a fantastic idea!!