The Sunday Showcase: Christmas Traditions.

Today's Sunday Showcase collaboration post with MIREILLE of Chez Mireille is all about Christmas Traditions, or Holiday Traditions. Mireille and I are both Greek Orthodox by the way, which means we both keep the Christmas tree up until January 6th (or after). Today I am going to talk about some of the Christmas traditions I have been doing with my family and with Vivian such as baking Christmas cookies, wearing Christmas Pajamas, Elf on the Shelf, adding some new Christmas books to our collection each year, putting together a festive coffee bar and sweets area, Christmas dinner, etc.

CHRISTMAS  TABLE  &  TABLESCAPES.

Of course Christmas dinner is a big tradition in most homes. We have our big Christmas dinner/lunch on Christmas Day - after all presents are open - and the table is always set up in a festive way. These photos are from this year's Christmas dinner we had sometime around 3.00 PM on Christmas Day. The table-cloth is brand new, such good quality, it is from Meijer - I love the country vibes. These are a set of Christmas tables, each featuring a different outside door, all decked out, it's the dinner plate and the salad plate. I used the dark red linen napkins this year with a crystal stone napkin ring right in the middle creating a big skinny bow. Those are fresh red roses in the middle (purchased for less than 5 bucks from Aldi's) and 2 simple yet festive Christmas candles burning (from Target - current). This year for Christmas Dinner, we had filet mignon cooked medium rare (not pictured) - it was delicious - a fresh greens mixed salad, feta cheese-stuffed peppers, pickled vegetables+olives, rice pilaf, an incredible dish of scalloped potatoes with ground beef, red wine, baklava and cake plus fruit for dessert.

Speaking of presents, we open them on Christmas Day however it's a tradition for us to open our Christmas stockings on Christmas Eve.

CHRISTMAS  PAJAMAS.

Every year (since Vivian was about 4) we take mommy+me photos with our Christmas Pajamas. Vivian gets new Christmas PJs every year. Elfie brings them for her the first day she comes, on December 1st. This year we wore our red+white candy-striped PJs (mine are jogger style, in a waffle texture from Old Navy, Vivian's are comfortable cotton with a matching tee, from Carter's) with our new festive red, navy and burgundy flannel plaid button-down shirts from Old Navy. I love missmatched pajamas. 

CHRISTMAS  FAMILY  PHOTOS.

Though Vivian and I take a lot of photos by our Christmas Tree/s each year, we try to do family photos too. Though it doesn't always happen, but I will make sure to have this tradition go strong each year. This year I made sure I took Christmas Family Photos with my dear parents, too. You will see more from this shoot in a post, coming next week.

CHRISTMAS  NAILS.

OK this is a 'tradition' I started this year with my daughter. Getting our festive nails done for Christmas was a little gift to myself and one of my gifts to her. I will make this a yearly thing, for sure.

CHRISTMAS  TRADITIONS  WITH  MIREILLE.

I love that just like Vivian and I, Mireille and her son Johnathan mixed and matched their black+white plaid PJ bottoms with black t-shirts on top. Mireille bought the same festive plaid Christmas PJs for all of her boys. And just like I have a coffee and sweets/desserts bar, Mireille has a fun cart which she turned into a hot cocoa bar for the holidays. Oh and we love those Pirouline chocolate-filled cookies, too.

CHRISTMAS  COOKIES.

For the third year in a row Vivian and I baked and decorated Christmas cookies. Honestly we have followed a different recipe each year but I like this year's recipe the best. Very simple sugar butter cookies that were delish. I prefer eating mine without frosting or any of the decorations so Vivian only decorated half of them. This year we did cut-out Christmas cookies in 8 different shapes: stars, reindeer, mistletoe, circle ornaments, stockings, snowmen, angels and Christmas trees.

PERSONALIZED  CHRISTMAS  ORNAMENTS.

Every year we had a few personalized ornaments to our Christmas trees. Vivian gets 1 or 2 new personalized ornaments each year, but sometimes I do a family ornament too. In the photos above you can see our two personalized ornaments for this year. I did the neutral+pink wooden ornament for Vivian with her name cut-out and a gold 2020 ornament with a Santa hat for our family.

ELF  ON  THE  SHELF.

A tradition we started a few years ago is "Elf on the Shelf". Vivian named her Elfie Cookie and Cookie comes out on December 1st and stays put through Christmas Day. I don't go crazy with Cookie, I can definitely get more creative but who has time for that?! LOL I do switch her places daily though and her elf leaves her letters often. She also puts Vivian in the Christmas mood, by placing something in her stocking, telling Vivian to make Christmas cookies or build a gingerbread house, etc. Elfie also encourages Vivian to study hard, to read, to play with her toys, to clean up after herself and to be a good girl overall. Sometimes in early December Cookie brings Vivian 2-3 Christmas books that we add to her collection. From mid November through the end of December, Vivian and I read all of her Christmas books, some more than once.

SWEETS+COFFEE  BAR.

I have been doing a festive, inviting coffee bar for Christmas for 4-5 years now. This is my coffee+sweets bar this year and I will focus more on this and post more photos about my coffee bar, on a separate post dedicated just to the decor in my kitchen area. But doesn't this look fun and festive?! Coffee tastes better if you accompany it with a cookie, truffle or chocolate bar. Or  with a shot of whiskey on the side or a shot of Bailey's in your coffee?!

THE  SUNDAY  SHOWCASE  FEATURE.

My Favorite post from the last Sunday Showcase linkup was by GRACE from Graceful Rags, a very stylish college student who recently turned 21. Grace was Red-y for the Holidays in a beautiful, fancy red taffeta dress with a stunning big bow on the waist. She matched her gorgeous red party dress to a darling red cocktail purse and wore lots of crystal jewelry which perfectly matched the crystals on her black pumps. This fancy and super feminine look would make a great option for New Year's Eve.

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