It’s the most wonderful time of the year, they say! Or perhaps, the most stressful time of the year?! This year I have been doing a few things differently, and very deliberately stopped to capture OUR Christmas, and you can easily do the same. There is a shoot list with ideas at the bottom.

Yes, this does take a bit of effort, but the thought of how much I would LOVE to have this from when the boys were tiny, is plenty of motivation for me! Today, is always the youngest and littlest stage we can capture our children at.

Christmas was a big deal for me growing up, I loved the predictable pattern of the traditions, the same decorations coming out of the loft, the same things on TV (partly because we one channel!), the same food. But like most things in life, my well-known version of Christmas changed after having the boys. First of all I had both of them in the run up to Christmas so we couldn’t fly “home” to Denmark, and overall I wasn’t well at all and I have no real memory of the first Christmas with either of them. We were also midway through big building works and for a few years I didn’t feel that it was MY Christmas, it was somehow everyone else’s Christmas and I was just looking in from the outside. However, in the past few years we have really started to build our own traditions with the boys, and I very much feel it is MY Christmas again.

Here are two short videos I have made this year, and some of the still images. They are super rough around the edges, because I am both being a mum and the camera man, but I love them all the same. I have made a list of ideas that you might want to capture when documenting your Christmas this year (towards the bottom of the page). You will thank your self no end in the years to come, and obviously remember to get in the pictures with your children! Enjoy and have the very best Christmas with your family x

Capturing Christmas Ideas

I am loving video at the moment, and would encourage you to try both still images and video. Here are some ideas:

• Getting the tree (even if it is just out of the loft)
• Decorating the tree
• Your children’s wish list
• Making decorations
• Decorations up around the house
• Baking together
• Watching Christmas films together
• Reading Christmas books
• You with your children
• Christmas jumpers
• Wrapping presents
• The stockings
• Visiting Santa
• Nativity play costumes
• Christmas pyjamas and Christmas bedding
• Santa preparation, the cookies, milk, carrots
• The table all set
• The food
• The presents, unwrapping and in use
• Writing Christmas cards and/or your children’s card designs from school.
• Culture and traditions (we have various Danish decorations every year)

I do feel I have “wasted” a few years and the boys have gone and grown no end. I was tweaking a promotional Christmas video for a customer this November which made me revisit some of their footage from three years ago, and I found my youngest in that footage – it was another one of those moments where I was stopped in my tracks and found my self so emotionally drawn in by revisiting that tiny little moment in time, and seeing that little boy all animated and excited. And hence I decided this is the year I will make an effort and document OUR Christmas, so I can revisit these very moments as often as I like for ever more.

Do you know I offer at home family films, where I help create a beautiful film, a keep sake time capsule of your family. This gives your the treasure ability to go back and rejoin this moment in life with your child, forever more. You can find out more about my family films here.