Christmas Traditions + Holiday 2019 Card

This post is in partnership with Minted. Some items were gifted and some links are affiliated.

Christmas is here, which means celebrations and traditions galore!

Traditions are my favorite part of the holiday. Every year my family, cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents all get together on Christmas eve and even though the cousins are all grown up now and some have kids of their own, we still stick to tradition. Everyone gathers in my aunt’s family room and all the cousins sit in a big circle while my uncle hands out gifts to each of us and then we go around one by one starting with the youngest to open them. It’s something that we’ve done since we were kids and something the whole family looks forward to every year. It’s a tradition that will never change no matter how old we get.

While Steve and I each have our family traditions of our own, we decided after getting married, to start some of our own Christmas traditions. Since we typically travel back to our parents for the holidays, we celebrate just the two of us a few nights before we head out of town with takeout, wine and in our sweats while watching a holiday classic – Elf or Christmas Vacation are the usual go-tos;) It’s our little Christmas calm before the craziness of the family celebrations once we get back home.

Another tradition we started after we got engaged is our annual Christmas card. My family and I growing up always took a holiday card photo each year to use in the Christmas card that was sent out to family and friends so it’s been a tradition for me for many years. But once Steve and I got engaged and added Rosie to our family, we decided to start our own Holiday card tradition. No matter how quickly the holiday sneaks up on us which it seems like it does that every year, we always make time to take a photo for the card and then sit down together and create the card that we’ll send out that year…even if sometimes we do it a little late. Aka this year got the best of us but we still got it done.

This year, we decided to take the photo after my brother-in-law’s wedding in St. Louis. We got up early the morning after the wedding (seemed like a better idea before the wedding) and hauled Rosie downtown for the photo. For our card, we stick with tradition and every year we’ve ordered through Minted. They have my favorite card designs and some beautiful foil options which I opted for this year and love how it turned out. Plus they make ordering and mailing so easy with their pre-addressed envelope options and return address. I use their contact book to store all my addresses and then it’s a quick easy update to the list each year before ordering. They also came in handy this year when I ordered later than usual with free rushed shipped.

There’s nothing that gets me more excited for the holidays then sending and receiving Christmas cards to/from family and friends. It’s a tradition we plan to always stick by and one that we look forward to every year.

Sharing some past Christmas card photos below.