Tips for your baby’s first Christmas

The most wonderful time of year is even more wonderful now that you’re a parent. Revel in this once-in-a-lifetime moment with our tips and tricks for creating traditions, taking photos, keeping travel stress-free and more.

• Design your holiday card. If there’s one thing new parents love, it’s whipping out baby photos every chance they get. Holiday cards are the perfect excuse to foist your baby’s adorableness on pretty much everyone in your address book, so take advantage with a primo photo card. I love the modern designs from Tiny Prints and Minted.
• Splurge on baby’s first christmas PJ’s. Nothing amps up the Christmas morning cute factor like a pair of cuddly holiday footie pajamas. Sure, your baby can only wear them for a month, but if you get something unisex, you can hand them down to the next kid.
• Choose a stocking. This is the stocking you’ll pull out year after year, so get something you really love. If your stockings hold their fair share of the gift booty, look for something roomy. If you only use stockings for little trinkets, go with something smaller.
• Pick and Choose Traditions. Do you love how your family always throws a kitschy Christmas sweater party, or how your husband’s spends Christmas Eve playing board games? Now you have your own little family, and you can hand-pick the traditions that you like best to form your own set.
• Start a NEW Holiday Tradition. As much as you’ll be influenced by how you grew up, it’s also fun to come up with something that’s all your own. Make it a ritual to read the same special holiday book each year, watch retro holiday specials like Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. We started the tradition of our own Thansgiving the weekend after Thanksgiving. Makes it more “homey.”
• Visit Santa. Sure, your baby has no idea who the portly guy in red is. But you do, and so do your parents, who will get a big thrill out of seeing your babe (even if he’s screaming) sitting on Santa’s lap in photos. We will be running Mini sessions next weekend with the big ole’ Jolly Man! Also, enjoy the total lack of interest in getting on Santa’s gift list—it won’t last! 
• Create an Ornament. Ornaments are all about the memories associated with them, and this first Christmas is a biggie. So commemorate it with a sweet ornament you’ll love pulling out year after year. Create a photo ornament with your fave snapshot of the year, or personalize one with baby’s name.
• Give an Heirloom Gift. Along with the requisite brightly-colored baby toys, this is the year to give a gift that your baby will have forever and can pass down to her own kids some day. Need ideas? A locket, pretty snow globe or keepsake box with prints from their newborn session are all classic choices.

This is the time of year where we see our friends and families the most! Make the best of it!