How to make Baby’s First Christmas Special

This is our first year celebrating Christmas with our baby girl Everly. She is 7 months old and is a blast. I think that she will either be crawling or starting to walk by Christmas, so we will be in for a real treat. This year we decided that we are going to stay home for the holidays so that we can start our own family traditions. We invited the grandparents to come down, but we will see if they are able to make it. Since this is our first Christmas with our sweet baby girl, we wanted to make sure it was really special. I wanted to put together a list of what we are doing in order to make it memorable.

Getting into the Christmas Spirit

Keep in Mind to Baby Proof All Christmas Decorations – Especially the Tree

We have had our Christmas decorations up for weeks now. While decorating, keep in mind that you have to keep things baby-friendly. Our baby loves to be in a walker and gets into absolutely everything. So when we put up the tree, we knew we had to block her from getting anywhere near it. Our solution was to wrap a bunch of fake presents and surround the tree with them so that she could not get near. This was great because it really added to our decorations. I made sure all of our wrapping paper coordinated with our theme. For some of the boxes, I used old diaper boxes and put cans of soup in the bottom to make sure they weren’t going to be pushed out of the way easily.

All of the big boxes on the ground are either diaper boxes filled with heavy objects, or old toy boxes (her walker box) filled and wrapped. This does the trick to keep her out of the Christmas tree.

Get Family Stockings

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I bought our stockings from target last year when I found out we were having a baby. We already had her name picked out so I grabbed on with her initial on it. We also have stockings for the dogs. I am tempted to buy another E stocking in case we have another baby. Both of the names we like start with an E. That way we would have a matching stocking in case target stops making these.

If you are wondering who the extra stocking is for, it is for one of our dogs, Norman. I have one for our other dog, Charlotte, as well. I just didn’t hang her up because I wanted it to be symmetrical.

These are the Target stockings we have

Get Matching Christmas Jammies

I am a sucker for matching family outfits. My husband pretends he hates it, but deep down I think he kind of thinks it’s fun. I got us matching jammies last year from old navy, but I think I might pick up another set this year because I do not love the ones I got last year. Target has a ton of matching sets.

I love these from Target

Take Festive Holiday Photos of Baby

It’s no secret, I take way too many photos of my child. We have photoshoots all the time. I use my Canon M50. It takes incredible pictures and is reasonably priced. The photos I take on my camera always turn out way better than the ones I take on my phone. We have already had a few holiday shoots while we were at home bored. Here are some of our photos to inspire you.

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Start New Family Traditions

I still remember going to my grandma’s house every year for Christmas Eve dinner. She would always make a huge feast and we got to open some presents. These moments are so precious to me and I would do just about anything to go back and do it all over again. I want to make sure Everly feels the same way. Here are some things we plan to do with Everly this Christmas season.

• Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden Lights
• Go get a picture with Santa
• Walk around Christmas in Davidson
• Watch a Christmas movie (she is too young for this, but we will try)
• Make Christmas Cookies- This doesn’t sound like it would be fun with a baby, but my mom came over and we made Christmas cookies with Everly, and we had a great time.
• Get baby an ornament to document their first Christmas. We got one from the mall that has all of our names on it. There are some cool places where you can get your baby’s handprint on an ornament. I still want to do this, we just haven’t had time.
• Take family Christmas photos and send out Christmas Cards to Family and friends.
• Put together a Christmas Time Capsule – Collect memorabilia from baby’s first Christmas and store it somewhere safe. Save it for when your child is older. You could put your baby’s Christmas onesie, the bow from their first present, a Polaroid picture, the sky is really the limit. You could give it to your child when they have their first child. My mom recently gave me some dresses that I wore when I was younger, and some that she wore when she was a baby. It was so special to dress my daughter up in them. It could be the same thing with your Christmas memorabilia.
• Have a family dinner – make a special dinner for you and your family. If your baby is ready for solid foods, make them something special too, or let them try some of your dinner.

Gifts Ideas for Baby’s First Christmas

Let’s be honest, your baby is not going to remember their first Christmas. They do not need a crazy amount of presents under the tree, or new toys. My child is more fascinated by cardboard boxes, my dog’s toys, and tags of clothes and toys rather than any toy I have boughten her. We are focusing on getting her 5 times, one from each of the following lists. I originally got this idea from my friend Kailyn who has a baby similar to our baby’s age.

Want

This can be a fun new toy for your baby. Everly loves bath time, so I decided to get her some bath toys to make bath time even more fun. This is what I bought from Amazon.

Need

Something that your baby needs. We don’t have any bowls for when she starts self-feeding solid foods, so I got her some bowls and a set of spoons.

Wear

Pick your baby out an outfit. I am crazy, and only buy things on sale. I LOVE the store Jack and Janie, but their prices are too expensive for me. However, I cannot justify spending $60+ on a baby’s shirt that they will probably grow out of in a few months. I have found that they have a great sale rack. I picked up a few things for the summer for her at a great price point. Here are some of the things I picked up

Read

Find a book for you and your baby to read together. My favorite book I have right now is “Thank you God for Mommy“. We read this book every day. I love it so much that I bought her the “Thank You God for Daddy” version. The book is very sing-songy so she likes it. The pages are cardboard, which is nice, so she won’t rip the pages. Both books are linked below

Experience

This one is my favorite gifts because we like to get out of the house and do things. I bought my baby a season pass to the aquarium near our house. It was only $40 for the entire year and we can come and go on the weekdays as we please. Other experiences we asked the grandparents for were

• Swim Lessons – Little Otter Swim School
• Little Gym Pass
• Discovery Place Pass
• Zoo – We don’t have a nice zoo nearby or I would ask for a zoo pass.

Whatever you decide to do to celebrate your baby’s first Christmas, I am sure it will be great. Having a baby is such a blessing and they make everything more fun. Let me know what other ideas you have to make your baby’s first Christmas special in the comments below!