Blogger Holiday Traditions: Lindsay of Chic to the Nines & Megan Reeves Photography

Next up we have a very special post from the sweet Lindsay Van Cleave of Chic to the Nines and LC Vintage & Co.

Traditions are very important to me. It’s one of my favorite things about the Holidays. My Mom was always big on traditions. She started two Christmas Eve traditions that I wanted to share with you.

Each Christmas Eve after we get back from church; my family and I all sit together in the family room, drink hot chocolate (or chocolate martinis when we were older!) and watch “National Lampoons Christmas Vacation”. It’s something we have been doing together since my brother and I were really little. I think we all have the movie memorized, but we still laugh every single year. When I was little, we used to watch the tape and upgraded to DVD a few years ago. I guess the next upgrade will be to blue ray.

The next tradition my Mom started when we were born. Each Christmas Eve right before we left for church she always found some excuse to sneak back into the house to leave my brother and I new Christmas pajamas on our beds. My Mom would tell us when we got home from church that the “Elves” had come and left them for us. (I think it was her way of keeping us quiet during church. Hehe!) Each year we were so excited and surprised! To this day, my brother and I still act surprised even though we are 30 and 27 years old.

These simple traditions take on an even more special meaning for me this year as my Mom has recently passed away after a long battle with breast cancer. I plan to continue these traditions when I have my own family one day. I just got married a month ago. Happy Holidays!

And next, the lovely Megan of Megan Reeves Photography :)

Years ago-when our first child was back in that crawling/getting into everything age-I was worried about putting all of the fragile ornaments on the tree where he might hurt himself.  So I had some of my favorite family pictures printed out at wallet size, threaded them with ribbon and hung those up instead.  There was nothing particularly fancy about them but the next year everyone was so excited to see those ornaments again that we created a few more.

Now it’s 8 Christmases later and Oscar and Henry’s favorite part of decorating the tree is going through the collection of pictures: each child taking a moment to remember a “first”, a family vacation, someone they love-and hanging it on the tree. I love that it’s teaching them that Christmas is about the importance of family and being grateful. It’s also a neat opportunity to look back on the year and decide what important moments will become this year’s ornaments.

Tagged as: chic to the nines, lc vintage & co, lindsay van cleeve