How We Celebrate Christmas | Camille Whiting

This post is part of the "How We Celebrate Christmas" -- a mini series showing how other families "do" Christmas. I hope you enjoy learning from other families as much as I have!

You can read all the posts in the series by clicking here!

As always, this is not meant to stress us out or make us feel like we are doing Christmas wrong. Rather, my hope with this series is we can see that there are many RIGHT ways of celebrating. Hopefully some of these ideas will help you start your own meaningful family Christmas traditions.

Meet: Camille and the Whiting Family

1. Tell us about your family!

There's three of us- myself and my husband Jacob, and we added our infertility miracle baby two years ago. We worked hard to find each other and have our baby and I think it's made us a little extra appreciative of quality time together.

Jacob is an engineer and I blog and mom full time. We started our blog as a project to go on one creative date a week no matter what to keep love alive, and we've continued to do this for almost 7 years including family dates and romantic dates as our favorite part of our week!

2. Tell us a favorite memory of Christmas past!

We are all about experiences, and one year my husband told me as much as he loves are large families he thought it would be fun to run off for a weekend to Las Vegas and return Christmas Eve. I thought that sounded a little crazy at first to miss out on all the fun, but it ended up being one of my favorite Christmas memories! We went to shows, we saw everything holiday decoration we could in Las Vegas, we enjoyed quality time driving together. It reminded me he's my greatest gift and time with husband is all I really want for Christmas.

3. How do gifts work in your home?

We buy for each other, and we try to follow the "Something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read" theory. We always spoil each other a little and add in a few surprises. We always gift at least one date to each other too, something spendy we might not have in the normal budget, and it's my favorite thing.

We do Santa in our house. Santa brings one big unwrapped gift and fills stockings, and everything else is from family members. We love to indulge in the magic but also keep our children aware that there's still magic with family gifting too.

4. If married, do you and your spouse exchange gifts? What about sibling gifts?

We love to exchange gifts and make Christmas special. We both work really hard, and it's the one time a year we say have fun and indulge. I love that we spoil each other with something special and meaningful each year.

We also draw names for sibling families. It makes life easier both being from large families! We buy for one family, and send it early.

We only have one child currently so we haven't figured out sibling gifts in our home.

5. What special Christmas Eve traditions does your family have?

We go to my parent's home most often, and we have a "Jerusalem Dinner" and eat the things Jesus would eat. It's very religious, it's very spiritual, and it reminds us to savor what the season is really about.

6. What special Christmas Morning traditions does your family have?

We love to have a great breakfast, we try to read the Christmas story from the Bible before presents, and I actually typically get up way before the family and go for a run Christmas morning and shower before they wake up. My boys are both late sleepers and I'm an early bird, so it's been fun to run the neighborhood and peak into homes with windows open and trees lit up. It's a touching scene to think of all the joy and love your neighbors are experiencing, that you're about to experience when you're not-so-morning-people family arise.

7. Do you have any favorite holiday recipes that make an appearance each year?

We're always in charge of rolls. I just blogged this recipe this year! https://fridaywereinlove.com/famous-family-rolls-recipe/

8. Do you have any Christ-centered Christmas traditions you want to share?

The Jerusalem Dinner and reading the Christmas story from the Bible. We always attend church the Sunday before and after and enjoy listening to sermons and singing Christmas songs.

9. What are some ways you have simplified Christmas to keep stress lower?

We cut neighbor gifts, and even Christmas cards this year. It was just too much with how many work deadlines we both had. Limiting gifts and shopping early is a favorite for me too, it simplifies things big time!

10. Any other favorite Christmas memories/ideas/tips you want to share? We love hearing how others make their season magical but not overwhelming!

If you can get your shopping done in the fall you'll have a much cheaper Christmas and a better season! We love Amazon Prime Days in early fall, so many Black Friday priced deals and we can order and budget then, and spend our Christmas having more fun and less worry!

We're known for giving "A Year of Dates" on our blog, where I gift my husband 12 pre-planned, pre-paid dates- one for each month of the year. I've done it almost every year for seven years, those blog posts always do so well, and I love how many emails I get saying it was the perfect gift! I highly recommend planning this one out and gifting it at least one year of your life. It's been the greatest things we both enjoy all year long! You can find details here: https://fridaywereinlove.com/year-of-dates-gift-12-pre-planned-pre-paid-dates-to-enjoy-throughout-the-year/

You can follow Camille at FridayWereInLove.com | Instagram.com | Facebook and Pinterest for all their date ideas and plans.

Thanks so much Camille for sharing with us!

Meet: Camille and the Whiting Family

2. Tell us a favorite memory of Christmas past!

3. How do gifts work in your home?

4. If married, do you and your spouse exchange gifts? What about sibling gifts?

5. What special Christmas Eve traditions does your family have?

7. Do you have any favorite holiday recipes that make an appearance each year?

8. Do you have any Christ-centered Christmas traditions you want to share?

9. What are some ways you have simplified Christmas to keep stress lower?

10. Any other favorite Christmas memories/ideas/tips you want to share? We love hearing how others make their season magical but not overwhelming!

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