Tag: Christmas

Our Christmas Holiday Traditions

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Before we get to today’s post, let me just encourage you US friends to get yourself to the polls today. It is Election Day and damn it, you deserve to make your voice heard. Your vote is important. So please please please, do your research before you go, show up with your post it note of who you’re going to vote for, and get your vote in. I spent an hour last week researching the candidates on my ballot and filling out my advanced ballot. I honestly enjoy this process so much understanding what candidates stand for and picking a person that I think is the best for the job they are running for. So go do your thing! Your voice matters. You matter!

Now onto some fun content…

This upcoming time of year always seems so full of traditions for many people! It’s such a great way to look forward to the season and its festivities. I’m sharing some of the traditions we’re planning on partaking in this holiday season, and I’d love to hear what your favorite holiday tradition is for the season in the comments!

The past couple of years, George, the Elf on a Shelf visits us starting on December 1. Last year, I got smart and purchased from a local mom-owned company an Elf kit for George to help me with fun activities for him to participate in over the season. Harrison loves finding George each morning, and I’m hoping this year, Jonathan may start to join in.

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Our Christmas 2021: A Photo Diary

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Happy New Year, friends! I hope you all had a joyful and restful holiday season. I always find the time between Christmas and New Year to truly be a time of relaxation with so many people off work, and finally feeling like I can truly unplug from work email and tasks.

We had a really wonderful Christmas. Harrison’s excitement this year for all things Santa and Christmas Day was palpable and contagious. We had so much fun opening gifts from Santa on Christmas morning, enjoying a slow brunch with just our family and opening presents. It was so nice out on Christmas, that we actually got to play outside a bit. Then we had my parents over for Christmas dinner later that evening.

I wanted to share some of the photos from the day all in one place.

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Merry Christmas! From, the Lanes

Posted on by Lauren Lane

This is it, friends! My last post of 2021. 117 posts this year!

I’m planning on taking off the rest of the year through the new year to give myself a mental break and be present with my little family! I’ve so appreciated and loved the people I’ve met through this space. Thank you for reading and being a virtual part of our family.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Christmas Book Club

Posted on by Lauren Lane

This past Thursday, I hosted our annual girls’ Christmas book club at our house. Like so many other events, last year’s Christmas book club was done virtually over Zoom. So I was so excited to have everyone back at our house this year!

I love hosting this little get together because for me, it’s always the kick-off to the holiday week. And with so much time with family over the holidays, I love starting the holiday week with girlfriends.

Christmas jammies are encouraged. But, honestly, anything comfy does the trick. This year, the Chiefs played on Thursday night, so instead of having a Christmas movie playing, we had the Chiefs game playing!

I always choose a couple of appetizers/snacks to have for everyone. And we have so much fun sipping wine, eating snacks, and kicking off the holiday season.

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Friday Favorites {12.17.21}

Posted on by Lauren Lane

I feel myself getting caught up this time of year in trying to have the perfect Christmas. Mostly ideas of peaceful cookie decorating, picturesque holiday movie watching on the couch with the whole family and a fire going, and doing all of the festive things like visiting Santa, looking at lights. And then there are little things too, for me, like wrapping each present perfectly. And I can find myself, if I don’t catch it early enough, with these high expectations of what this time looks like for our little family.

The holidays, and pretty much all special events, are better when I lower my expectations. When it doesn’t go perfectly, I don’t want my kids remembering a mom that was flustered and upset. I want them to remember these special celebrations as moments of joy strung together.

So as we head into this holiday week, I pray for you, friend, a week where we let go of the reigns a little bit. We lower the expectations of our children’s reactions and actions, the perfect picturesque holiday scenes we have in our minds, and remember that the best thing we can give our kids is a happy, joyful mom in the chaos and mess of it all. (And then let’s just all plan to have a virtual glass of wine together at the end of the night. ☺️)

Happy Friday, friends. And Merry Christmas week! ~Lauren

We went and visited Santa a couple weeks ago. I wasn’t sure how this would go, honestly. I was prepared for tears. Harrison hadn’t visited Santa since he was 1, and obviously has no memory of it.

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Let’s Look…Favorite Traditions

Posted on by Lauren Lane

It’s the time of each month where I link with other blogs to share a little peek into some small aspect of our lives. I can’t believe this is our last link up of the year! This year, we’ve shared…

This month, we’re sharing our favorite traditions.

I’ve written about some of our traditions in the past. For example, for Halloween, we celebrate with the cousins doing a Halloween carnival!

My sister and I have a couple of games that we remember from the school carnivals we would go to around Halloween that we always had so much fun with. We do fishing for prizes, a Halloween egg hunt, and a “cake” walk.

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Christmas Home Tour 2021

Posted on by Lauren Lane

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! (Second most wonderful, in my opinion. The first is the FIRST big garden trip to the garden center in the Spring. 😆. You guys know I LOVE my garden!)

Today, I’m inviting you all into our home decorated for the holidays! Plus, this helps me remember where I put everything when I go to decorate the next year. 😊

Come on inside!

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Christmas 2020 – A Photo Diary

Posted on by Lauren Lane

We missed our family this Christmas. Our usual Christmas routine involves a chaotic day. It starts with Christmas at our house to open presents from Santa and our immediate little family. It’s then followed by brunch and presents with my side of the family at Mimi and Papa’s house, and then afternoon naps and Christmas dinner/presents with Nathan’s family. And we missed it this year. Especially having extra sets of hands to entertain kiddos during the day. 🙂

But we made the most of it, and had our little Christmas at home with just the four of us. Complete with Zoom calls to our families, a big brunch and ending with steaks for Christmas dinner. It was both exhausting and so much fun. Harrison really started to understand Santa this year (he comes down the chim-a-lee) and had so much fun. Here’s what our Christmas looked like this year…

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Merry Christmas + Happy New Year

Posted on by Lauren Lane

One last blog post this year. I thought about doing a recap of our year, but I think like pretty much every single person, our recap would look like “here’s a picture of us staying home in March! And here’s one of us staying home in April!”

And truly the brightest spot of our year was adding our little Jonathan to the family. I’ve grieved a lot that this birth was not the way we expected because of COVID. Our family couldn’t be there to surround us. We still have family members who live near us that haven’t met our little guy yet in person.

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Let’s Look At…Our Christmas Card

Posted on by Lauren Lane

If you’re new around here, once a month I link up with two of my favorite blogs (Shay @ Mix and Match Mama and Erika @ A Little Bit of Everything), to share a “look” into some little aspect of our life. Here’s a peak back at what we’ve “looked” at so far this year:

Today we’re sharing our Christmas cards!

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