Christmas Traditions

Doesn't this look cozy??/

Christmas is approaching SO quickly!!! This December has been so much fun with Jaxie in tow! He is FIVE Months old today!!! Happy five months baby boy! My whole life I have dreamed of Christmas with my own family and this was the first year I am living my dream! We have created some of our own traditions as well as kept some of the old ones too! 

Some of our favorite traditions

1. Christmas Cookie Baking! - Each year my mom and I pick around three specialty cookie recipes to make along with our annual sugar cookie cutouts to hand out to friends, family, and neighbors. This is such a fun tradition because we Jam christmas music, light a fire, sip wine, and BAKE!!! 

Jax Holden December 2016- Baking with Mama and Honey

White Chocolate Peppermint Pudding cookies. Recipe  HERE

2. Decorate the Christmas tree!!!! I get a little excited and put my tree out right BEFORE Thanksgiving. My reason for doing so is because I do not host Thanksgiving and I want to have it all up and done before the Holiday season.. plus I like to enjoy it just a bit longer! I usually do a theme tree with certain colors this year to match our living room decor. I have changed and painted a few things in my interior so our tree was different shades of bronzes...it looks really pretty!!! We also have our " story ornaments" up too. We Jam Christmas music and really get into the spirit. 

Cozy Christmas!

3. A new one this year is to VISIT SANTA!!! :) YES! This year we went to Bass Pro shop with our sweet little four month old Jax H. and waited an entire 2 hours to sit on Santa's lap. We ended up walking around, drinking hot coffee, Jax fell asleep so it wasn't terrible. We just sort of looked at all of the stuff. 

He made the nice list I think :)

4. Look at CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!!! We do this every year but this year we ventured over to Santa's Ranch and enjoyed an entire drive thru park of beautiful lights!

5. Watch Christmas movies galore in our PJ's' ; our favorites include Christmas with the Kranks, Christmas Vacation, Four Christmases, The Family Man, and The Grinch!

2014

6. Host a Christmas Eve party 

Every year I host a little family party for my family. Since Christmas Day is designated to my mom, we host a fun "themed" get- to- gether on Christmas Eve. This year our theme is " Tapas & Cocktails" years past I have done  Mexican food and Margs, A cuban style dinner, BBQ, A sit down Steak and wine night; I do something different each year. I always include a signature cocktail and matching cute napkins and decor to go along with the theme. This year I am doing " Tapas and Cocktails" so nothing big and heavy just lots of fun little finger foods and a FUN holiday cocktail for everyone to enjoy. A white elephant exchange takes place and I always include little goodie favors for everyone to take home.

7. Send Christmas Cards! Each year we do a family picture mini session and then choose one to use for Christmas Cards! My favorite cards are from Tiny Prints but shutter fly and minted are also super spectacular!!! Last year's Christmas session was my favorite! I was 6 weeks pregnant and we chose one of those pictures to be our announcement picture! It was so special!!!

2014

2015

2016

Merry Christmas!!!!!