Merry Christmas + Our Family Photos

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! We're planning to spend today at home in our matching pajamas, snuggled up around the tree opening presents, watching Christmas movies, and cooking a (hopefully not too) fancy Christmas dinner.

Prior to the 2020 craziness, Jeff and I always talked about spending Christmas mornings at our house once we had kids, so while this year feels *weird* it's also where we always planned to be. At home with our family, combining our extended family's traditions and making new ones of our own. 

I think I mentioned a few times that taking our family photos this year was, well, exciting. Mia was not having it, to the point that our photographer invited us to pop back during another of her sessions to try again. We cajoled, we danced, we tickled, we snuck snacks into her mouth (like, in basically every photo you can see a yogurt bite!) and we even played videos from Frozen and Tangled on our phones, but nothing really worked. We still ended up with a few photos with smiles (or at least what looks like smiles - sometimes Mia's angry screaming face photographs as a smile!) so I'm calling it a win. Here are a few (of the many, many) from our sessions: 

P.S. Our photographer was Victoria C, we used her last year too and she's also shot some of our friends and extended family! We did our first session (the green photos) at Winnemac Park, and our second session in the Lincoln Park Nature Walk. 

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Starting a New Holiday Tradition: December 1st Box

Have you heard of December 1st boxes? The basic premise is, instead of giving your kids Christmas stuff for Christmas, you give it to them at the beginning of the holiday season so they can use it up through Christmas. Think Christmas pajamas, movies, books, bedding, etc. I first heard about the tradition on Merrick's Art, and I was like, "duh!" Why would you give your kids Christmas pajamas on Christmas, so they can wear them once and then grow out of them?! As someone who currently has a toddler growing out of all the fall clothes I just bought her, I'm very on board. It's also more exciting and fun than just giving your kids their pajamas ahead of time, or giving a book ahead of time. 

December 1st boxes are also special because they aren't just a present - you can turn the boxes into a whole day of traditions. Maybe every year you include a new Christmas movie, and then you pop some popcorn and watch the movie as a family. Or maybe you include a pack of Christmas sprinkles in the box, and then you all bake cookies together after. Or you could include hot chocolate mix in the box, and set up the tree and decorate the house while you drink hot cocoa. It's a world of possibilities to bring a little more cheer to the holidays! 

The only thing I'm personally thinking of changing up is the name. A December 1st box implies that you have to open it on December 1st, and I just know that if December 1st falls on a busy Tuesday there is no way we're going to remember our tradition. So I'm currently trying to think of a little rebrand before Mia is old enough to remember what we call the box. Holiday Cheer Box? Christmas Kickoff Box? (Lol I work with sales people, and that is a little too close to a SKO or Sales Kick Off for me ;) Let me know if you have any good ideas! 

Here's what's going in our December 1st box this year for our toddler: 

Polar Express Book / Buffalo Plaid Pajamas / Tartan Top / Tartan Skirt / M Tree Ornament / Christmas Coloring Book / Christmas Puffy Sticker Set

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Motherhood Monday: On Creating Holiday Traditions

When Jeff and I moved in together, we started talking about what our holiday traditions would look like. We'd put up the tree and decorate it together, while drinking hot cocoa and watching Christmas movies. We'd (eventually) spend Christmas morning as a family at our house, with a combination of our breakfast favorites from our childhood Christmases (Which from Jeff's means oyster stew and fried tomatoes!! All I can say here is, his stepdad is English?) and listen to Christmas music and open presents in our pajamas, before heading out to spend the rest of the day with our extended families.

But really, that's all we came up with. It's not much, huh?

Now that Mia is here, I've started to think about what traditions I want to put into place to make the holidays magical for her. Some of the things I want to do are:

• Go for a walk or drive to look at Christmas lights.
• Give out Christmas boxes after Thanksgiving, with a new pair of Christmas pajamas, some treats like hot cocoa mix or Christmas-y candy, and maybe a new holiday movie. 
• Visit Zoo Lights and other holiday festivals around the city. 
• Picking out a toy to donate, or adopting a family for Christmas every year. 
• Give Mia an ornament every year so that when she moves out, she'll have a collection for her tree (Both my parents and Jeff's grandma did this for us! Pro tip: don't give your kid a bunch of random sports ornaments, because then when he grows up he will feel obligated to put all of those guys on the back of the tree 😂)
• Write a letter to Santa (and have Santa write a little note back!), and save it in our Christmas book with pictures and descriptions of what we did each year (this is the book we have). 
• Bake a few of the same cookies every year, including my favorite sugar cookies but also cookies we can decorate.

What are some of your favorite Christmas traditions? Let me know in the comments so we can add them to our list! 

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A Show-Stopping Charcuterie Board + Our Holiday House

Yeeks you guys, we're under one week until Christmas!! Jeff and I decided to both take off some time from work, so we'll both be off starting tomorrow through the New Year. I cannot wait. We've got a ton of family time planned, as well as two day dates for Jeff and I, and a whole lot of seeing the holidays through Mia's eyes. It's so cute, she loves the decorations and is amazed every time we turn on our tree in the morning. I'm glad though that she's not fully mobile (just starting to figure out crawling over here, but we're very slow) because she is trying her hardest to rip every ornament off of the tree whenever we bring her near it!

So anyway, last weekend we hosted our annual White Elephant party with our friends. Whenever I host a party, I decide where to focus my energy. You can't go all-in on every thing or you'll go crazy. I was making two lasagnas from scratch as well as a champagne punch, so I decided instead of making something for snacks I'd just go for an epic cheese board instead.

How to make a show-stopping charcuterie board

If you're looking to take your charcuterie board to the next level, first think about presentation. In the past, I've just put everything on a big cutting board or tray. To take things up a notch, I pulled out the chalkboard placemats we got as a wedding gift and laid them end to end so that the cheese board could span the length of our whole dining room table. It really made a statement when people came in, and then obviously was fun to eat too! I liked the chalkboard placemats because they're hard so I didn't worry about people messing up my table with the cheese knifes. But, if you pre-cut all of your cheese you could get a similar effect with butcher paper.

My main tip when going for a cheese board is that more is more! Don't leave a ton of empty space, and instead try to fill in the nooks and crannies with additional goodies. I went into our fridge when I had some space to fill, and found some berries to add (sorry Mia, those were defs supposed to be for you!) as well as condiments. If your board ends up being too big for your party, don't worry about it because everything can be saved really easily. We did have leftovers from this, so I just bagged up everything when we were done - it made another great snack the next day!

And then another tip is to not make things look too fancy, so that people will actually eat from the board instead of feeling like they shouldn't mess it up. Cut pieces of cheese ahead of time, sneak a bite out of the dips, and use imperfect piles for crackers and meat.

Since there were kids at our party, I did a lot of my usual fancy cheese board items, but also included some less fancy stuff (see: colby-jack cheese, Ritz crackers, summer sausage) to make it fun for everyone.

Here's what I included on our charcuterie board: 

Cheeses: 
Sharp White Cheddar
Truffled Brie
Gruyere
Colby-Jack

Meats: 
Prosciutto
Spicy sopressata
Salami
Summer sausage

Crackers: 
Breadsticks
Bruscetta slices
Cheddar Whisps
Ritz Crackers

Dips:
Whipped Riccotta (I make this for every party. Buy whole milk ricotta and whip it with a lot of salt. Top with good olive oil, more salt, and whatever fresh herbs you have on hand - I did chives here.)
White bean hummus

The Rest: 
Fresh berries
Pomegranate seeds
Cornichons
Candied nuts
Fancy mustard
Jam

Usually for holiday boards I include fresh rosemary sprigs too, but I literally saw it on my list at the grocery store and couldn't remember why it was there and didn't buy it. What's wrong with me?! But it's so pretty to add to the board and makes things a little festive.

Our Holiday Decorations

I'm currently in the phase where I'm not loving all of the decorations I bought on the cheap back in the day (some when I moved to Chicago after college, some from as far back as high school!) so I'm slowly trying to work in some more grown up, minimalist decorations. My current motto for all things home is WWJGD (What Would Joanna Gaines Do, obviously) so I was psyched to find the pretty tree candle votive holder at Target. It looked so pretty all lit up with candles!

Obviously a lot of the stuff in our house is old, so I'm linking up what I can for you: 

Chalkboard placemats / Pitcher / Plaid Pillows / Faux Leather Pillows / Red Faux Fur Pom Pom Throw Blanket / Wreath (on mirror) / Tree Candle Votive Holder / Garland

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Favorite Christmas Music

What are your favorite Christmas albums? I have to admit I have a bit of a weird taste in Christmas music (thanks Mom!). I never quite got into all of the pop albums, and instead prefer the more subtle or the more traditional versions. Here are 3 of my favorite albums:

December by George Winston

Simple, quiet, pretty piano solos. Some are definitely Christmas songs and some are more Christmas-inspired. 

A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra 

This album errs on the traditional side with a choir in the background of a lot of tracks, but Old Blue Eyes can't help but put his own spin on things.

A Charlie Brown Christmas - Vince Guaraldi Trio 

This one is probably my all-time favorite - I love the jazzy spin on the traditional songs as well as the originals thrown in there. This one definitely brings me back to my childhood! 

While these are my favorites, I do get tired of listening to them on repeat after a while though so I should probably expand my collection. Tell me - what's your favorite holiday album?

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The Christmases of Bloggy Past

Have you gotten into the Christmas spirit this year? Christmas is only two weeks away and I feel like I'm so behind - I haven't done any baking and not a single present is wrapped under the tree. To get inspired and a little more into the spirit, I thought I'd share a couple of Christmas projects from past years.

DIY Ribbon Wreath 

DIY Tinsel Ornaments

(these are currently up on my tree!)

Sugar Crumble Cookies

Christmas Artwork

And, for funsies, the Christmas Tree Hats I crocheted

I hope you have a great weekend! As this post goes live I should be flying home from Minneapolis and then getting ready to hit a couple of Christmas parties tonight. Do you have any festive plans?

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All I want for Christmas...

... is to see my whole family!  All of the parties and seeing everyone is definitely my favorite part of the season.  I'm especially excited because my brother and his wife found some super cheap tickets from Korea so they can be here for Christmas.

There are a few things on my Christmas list though, here are some of the things I'm wishing for:

1. Rebecca Minkoff Bag / 2. Crystal Feather Bib Necklace / 3. 2014 Calendar / 4. Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook / 5. Double-zip Sweater / 6. Kate Spade Keychain / 7. Naked3 Palette

What's on your wishlist?

P.S. I'm being featured on Simple Easy Style today, check it out!

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