49. 7 Ways to Make Your Holiday Memorable This Year!

This podcast was transcribed using Descript. Please forgive any typos or errors.

Brittany:Hi friends! Welcome to the Life of Loverly podcast. I'm Brittany, a wife, mom, and lifestyle entrepreneur here to help you discover your best daily style and encourage you to try new things when getting dressed each day. I took a tiny following on social media and turned it into a community of over 1 million amazing women, and I am so glad you're here. I'll be sharing my heart with you beyond the 15 seconds on Instagram. So we'll be diving into things like personal growth, friendships, motherhood, marriage, and of course, the business of blogging. Really, this space is here to serve as your go-to resource to building a life you adore while sprinkling some kindness to others along the way. Grab an iced coffee and let's do life together. I'm Brittany, and this is the Life with Loverly podcast.

Hi friends! Welcome back to today's episode of Life with Loverly. Reunited with Nichelle!

Nichelle:And it feels so good.

Brittany:Oh my goodness, the flu literally took her out.

Nichelle: Yeah, guys, wash your hands, get your flu shot. Whatever you do, take care of yourself.

Brittany:We wanted to do a fun episode today that was all around the holidays and all the fun traditions and things that come along with that. And we thought it would be fun to share some of our favorite parts of this holiday season.

Nichelle: I mean, some of our traditions and, along with everybody else's, come from things that have been shared from other people, so handed down from person to person. So this will be really fun. I think hopefully you guys get something out of this and I know that we're going to get a lot out of it. We asked on Instagram today for everybody's favorite memories and traditions. We love hearing this stuff, so yeah, hopefully take something away from it.

Brittany:I feel like every time I ask this question on Instagram stories, I always take at least five of the things back to Chris and I'm like, we should totally do this. That is such a cool tradition to start. And I think for so long before I had kids, I felt like what the traditions were when we grew up is just what they're going to be forever for us. But we have the ability to create new traditions, stop traditions that we don't feel like are applicable . And so I think that's a really cool season where I am with, because my girls are so young still that they're just starting to realize all the magic of this season. So we have a lot of fun with it.

Nichelle:This is so much fun. I'm so excited to sharef I think some of the little Christmas is my favorite time of your guys. . If you don't know me, that is, that's where my heart lies. , yes, in the holiday season, but stocking stuffers, memories from that recipes that you look forward to during the holiday season. There's a lot of really good nuggets in here, so I hope you guys enjoy it.

Brittany: Yeah. We also have tons of holiday outfits on Loverly Grey right now, . So if you are listening to this and you're trying to figure out what you're going to wear to a holiday party or I just got my first invite for the upcoming holiday party and I'm like already like, okay, what am I going to wear? Which outfit? But on Loverly Grey, we've got so many reels and that's one thing I love doing. I love creating several different outfits and options for all different price points and just people to have some variety to choose from. So we've got lots of that live on Instagram on reels. And then in the Ltk app we've got, it's such a great resource. I want to talk about it for a second before we get into this because I don't think people realize how great of a resource that platform is.

I am a creator on there. There are hundreds of thousands of creators who have profiles on the Ltk app, but they are all sourcing items and they've got all these different features of collections and gift guides. So if you wanted to see my gift guides for her and you're in the shopping mode, you can just go into the app and see what all my picks are for several different categories. Or maybe you're looking for holiday outfits, you can go to the holiday category and see all of my picks. Some of them are, there's an option to just view it on the website's model or you can see a different section. That is the ways that I've personally styled it and it's got all the sizing information, details, everything you need to know to confidently make a purchase is listed right there all in one place. And we've got so much good ins information and inspiration in there right now with the holiday season.

Nichelle: I mean we're all strapped for time this time of year and we need somewhere we can go and find something fast. This, they've made it so easy.

Brittany:So if you're looking for a fast place to shop for gifts or holiday outfits, LTK app is your place.

Nichelle:Love that. I really would love to start with the gifts since we're coming off of that right there. Hostess gifts. I think a lot of people have questions about this going into the holiday season. They're going to these parties, events, things like that, work gatherings. Do you have any tips that you would give people for hostess gifts?

Brittany:I love a good bottle of wine and I recently had some really cute holiday tags made with our family's name on them and they coordinate with our Christmas card and I had them done here locally at a store called Eldridge Stationers. And they are this lovely print shop that does weddings and events and they actually do so much more than that. But they printed me these little tags. Like I said, the design coordinates with our family's Christmas card this year. And so what I like to do is get a great bottle of wine or something I really enjoy, or if it's something that I know the hostess really likes and I've got this really pretty velvet ribbon and there's a little hole in the top of the tag, and so just put the ribbon through it and tied on the neck of the bottle of wine. And then it's got our Christmas tag and it says Merry Christmas, the Sjogren's. And that is such an easy but really cute bottle to give. But then they see, oh, this is from them. So I think that is so easy. I also love a candle. Yes, I know some people are particular on scents in their house. That's how sometimes I feel like you find out about good scents or candles that burn really well is when somebody gifts it to you and then you could go back and get it again.

Nichelle:And there's also so many pretty candles. So if they don't use it to burn, it could be something they put on a shelf or decor or Whatnot.

Brittany:What are your thoughts for hostess gifts?

Nichelle:I go with wine. I think just the natural go-to. And it's even better if I know what they drink.

Brittany: Yes.

Nichelle:And then one of the things that I've done the last couple of years, we went to Robert's work event, like his work Christmas party and I took them an ornament. I love ornaments.

Brittany:Oh, that's a great idea.

Nichelle:So I try to go a little more classic just if I don't know their style, but just something really pretty and cute that they can use.

Brittany:Yeah, that's just great. I love that. I might actually steal that for one of the holiday parties that we got that.

Nichelle:For teachers too. And we got a lot of really good feedback. They sent letters home saying, "this was so original, we love that so much. I can actually use it. It's not an apple mug" or whatever.

Brittany:We need to write that idea down actually for when we start sharing our teacher gift guides. Yes.Because I feel like that is very fun and personalized, but then if the teacher really loved your kid, they're going to love your ornament every year.

Nichelle: Exactly. And one of my favorite places at is Pottery Barn. I love shopping the ornaments. They have so many different styles, anything from nostalgic, so your felt, what is bristle, all of those. And then it goes all the way to classic. So mercury, glass and everything. So a little bit for everybody. That's

Brittany:A great idea.

Nichelle: Going back to the outfit. So you share so many great outfits for holiday sparkle and tool and it's so much fun. What do you actually wear on Christmas day?

Brittany:On Christmas day, I usually wear our matching family Christmas pajamas to start off. And then it just depends. Sometimes we do kind of more formal, like a Christmas day dinner and I will dress up. I think Christmas Eve is when I tend to be my dresses. Yes, because Christmas Eve is my parents' anniversary. So before we had kids, we would go to dinner with them. There was this little restaurant in Athens that was open on Christmas Eve and a tradition that we always had was going and having dinner with my parents. And then my cousin who lives here hosted a Christmas Eve party. So we would go over there and be there kind of laid into the evening and then go home and do Christmas the next day. But now with kids, we usually do a Christmas Eve service and maybe my parents are kind of switching up because they want to be with the grandkids and things like that.

So I tend to wear my Christmas outfit on Christmas Eve. Last year I did this really pretty long plaid dress that I got from Red Dress and loved that the girls were dressed up in their cute little Christmas outfits. I think this year I will either do tool, there's a pretty tool skirt that I have, or I have a really nice long plaid skirt that I will do, kind of have a red wrap top that I'm thinking kind of do more of two piece set situation. But I don't know, I think mean really anytime after Thanksgiving, honestly before Thanksgiving, I think you can really start bringing out some of your pretty holiday pieces and put them to use.

Nichelle: Yeah. I'm taking a note from your book and I am doing the plaid dress this year. Yes. They came back out with it in two other colors. So I'll be doing that probably on Christmas Eve. So we used to order in chinese every Christmas Eve.

And so we found this new place in the last couple of years called Tani Thai. Really cute downtown Buford. And they're open on Christmas Eve and we've been going there to eat. So, it's not anything hugely fancy, but I get to wear my dress.

Brittany:Exactly.

Nichelle:And then Christmas morning we do the same thing. Pajamas, matching pajamas. And then before everybody comes, I'm the crazy lunatic that goes running upstairs to get ready before everybody comes over. And then I'm usually in a sweater and jeans the rest of the day. Just comfortable hanging out with the family.

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Nichelle:Do you have any favorite traditions that you guys do on actual Christmas Day?

Brittany:So, we make cinnamon rolls and a breakfast casserole, which Chris and I talked about a little bit last week. That's pulling some traditions from his family. And last year my girls were two and one. Collins was about to turn three. And so they were still very young and I think it felt like the morning was going by so slow because they would open one gift and be like, "wow, this is amazing!" And then they would want to open it and then we would get stuck playing with it. I ended up pulling out some of the gifts and putting them in the closet. Because I was thinking we don't need to open all of these. They're going to forget about them. But we just never have done that before.

Nichelle:It's so cute. I remember we texted, I think in the middle of the day, it was probably way after lunch and you're like, "the girls are still unwrapping one at a time."

Brittany:I know. We stopped, played with things, ate breakfast, opened another gift, played with it. They took a nap. My parents were like, "can we come over?" And I said, "sure. We actually haven't finished Christmas yet." But it was so great. But it definitely made me think, "okay, we don't need to do that much this year." And you just don't know what you don't know. And the grandparents are always so great at buying them the things as well. So I don't know. I just thought it was kind of funny because that was not what I was envisioning. But then I think back on my childhood and it puts me at eight years old where you're just like, "what's this?"

Nichelle:How fast can I go?

Brittany:Exactly.

Nichelle:That's where my kids are. I'm like, "can we slow it down guys? It's still going to be here."

So the girls now wake up a little later.

Brittany: It's kind of nice.

Nichelle:It is kind of nice. And last year I actually got ready before they ever got up.

Brittany: Well, might as well.

Nichelle:I know I might as well take advantage of it. One of our favorite traditions. So we have two really big ones that we do every single year. Some people may have heard of this. It's, from what I understand, a German tradition. My mom actually lived in Germany for a few years when she was younger. I think she was seven to nine or something like that. So they picked up some things. But the pickle ornament.

Brittany: Yes.

Nichelle:So finding the pickle ornament. My parents and Robert's parents come over later in the morning usually. And at some point my mom always hides the pickle and we never see it happen. Never see it happen. And I end up finding it every single year. Drive everybody insane. But you know I'm really competitive. But also what my mom doesn't realize is I decorate my tree so I know where everything is. Unfair advantage, I know.

Brittany:You're like, "PSA, girls pay attention to the Christmas tree this year." I'm going to text Madi and be like, "if you want that pickle, you need to go give a survey before Grandma gets there."

Nichelle:I give them the opportunity to help out with decorating this year. They always want to. They're like, "Mom, you never let us help." Because I'm very type A. This year I was like, "come help!" Because I still wasn't feeling well and they didn't want anything to do with it. I'm like, "well you're loss."

Brittany:Honestly. You're like, "this is going to come back to bite you. It's fine."

Nichelle:And our other one is the Saran Wrap ball.

Brittany:Yes. Okay, I was hoping you would tell this story because I feel like what we should do is give people an example of what this looks like. So maybe on stories.

Nichelle:I think I have a small video or at least a picture. So we'll definitely post that. It's insane guys. My mom uses, I feel like it's six to eight rolls of Saran Wrap. Yes. And throughout the year she's picking up little gifts. And these are things like your Apple charger, the cable flashlight, hand warmers, gift cards, which are everybody's favorite, chapsticks, things that you don't really think of, but you need them. You need these things. It's not usually crap.

It's so much fun to see what you're going to get. I know last year she had several Slim Jims in there. And it was so funny because they were wrapped around this ball. But she starts out with the most expensive or sought after gift in the center. So it's usually a bigger gift card or something. And then she wraps it around and then she puts other pieces in and keeps wrapping. And the point is, we have the whole family in a circle. You're going as fast as you can. You can't rip the Saran Wrap. You have to actually unroll it. So the thing is, when you finally get to a point, you're kind of pulling at it and it's rolling out and your treats are flying everywhere. It's so much fun! So I'll find that. I think I have a video.

Brittany:So how long does this whole process take? How do you go from person to person? Is it like a dice game?

Nichelle: It's a dice game. So the person in front of you, so the way that it's going, so let's just say clockwise. Okay. The person in front of you is rolling and they're trying to get doubles. So as soon as they get doubles, you have to pass it off. You're done.

Brittany: Oh, okay.

Nichelle:So you try to go as fast as possible. Not ripping it, but just unrolling it. And if they call stop, or whatever, it goes to them.

Brittany:Okay.

Nichelle:And so then it just keeps going in the circle.

Brittany: So how long does it take?

Nichelle: So there's usually eight to 12 of us. It just depends on who all's there. And it could take anywhere from five minutes to maybe 20-25. So it's not terribly long. My mom usually brings the stuff and she starts wrapping it while we're just chatting and talking. And so we're all watching what's going in it.

Brittany:Exactly. And you're like, "where's my turn giong to be in this?"

Nichelle: Exactly. Are we ready yet? Can we go yet? Are we ready? Yeah.

Brittany: Okay. You could even do it with candy or..

Nichelle:Oh, anything.

Brittany: But I think the trick is to make it bigger so that it is lasting for longer.

Nichelle:Yes. Yes.

Brittany:Okay. We should do this at the office.

Nichelle: I was about say, we totally need to do this at the office. It'd be so much fun.

Brittany:Because I remember when you sent us the video afterwards last year and I thought it was so cool. My kids are still kind of young to do this, but I think showing some of y'all how this works will be really a cool tradition to start, especially with teenagers. It's kind of like, how do you want to keep the family together? Everybody's just "great. Thanks for my Christmas gifts" and go get on their iPhones and start talking to their friends and so no, let's figure out ways to stay together and bring their family back together.

Nichelle: My sister's girls are what, eight and 12 And they still have a lot of fun with it too, because there is stuff in there that they need, too. It's just so fun and universal. So yeah, definitely should try it guys.

Brittany: I love that. What about your favorite Christmas cocktail?

Nichelle:Oh, so I'm not fancy when it comes to this. I'm going to be very honest with you. I love a good mimosa.

Brittany: Yep. That feels like a standard. Christmas morning.

Nichelle:It really is. And champagne is just a drink of choice for me. Anything bubbly, literally. And so sometimes my sister will bring fresh puree, so we'll have that instead of orange juice. Yeah. I mean honestly mimosa.

Brittany: Yeah. I think anything champagne based is my go-to as well. Although a few episodes back when we were talking with Mary Hollis, I was interested in trying out her recipe, the drink recipe with the Margarita. Yes. So if you do want a good Christmas cocktail and you haven't listened to her episode, go back a few after this and listen to what her recipe is because that's a good one.

Nichelle: I think the people need to hear also -- your recipe. You usually share a really good brie recipe every year.

Brittany:Yes. I need to actually put that in stories again. One of my friends introduced me to this brie recipe and then I've kind of shifted it over the years and made it with jams or brown sugars or whatnot. So that brie recipe is always a great, fun one for Christmas Eve night or if you're sometime around the holidays where you're making Christmas cookies or something, you just want something to nibble on. The breakfast casserole is so good. And my grandma's dressing recipe is our favorite thing. We always do it at Thanksgiving and then again on Christmas. And it's so funny because we're always like, "why don't we do this more times throughout the year?"

Nichelle:It's not the only time of year we can make dressing. I just said the same thing to my mother because dressing's one of my favorite things too. And I just asked her for her recipe. Oh, so good.

Brittany: Yeah. That's a great one. I do have that one posted on my blog, but I'll leave it in the show notes as well because, it's not a secret recipe, but it's one that my mom was like "definitely share this with your people because, everybody should know how great this is." And my grandmother's no longer with us so it feels like if more people are able to enjoy this then she's just going to be looking down on everybody smiling, happy that they enjoy it too.

Nichelle: I mean, leave it to the grandmas. They knew how to cook.

Brittany: Gosh. I know.

Nichelle:So my favorite recipe is actually my Mawmaw's, because I'm from the South, it's not grandma. She passed away when I was 12, but one of the things I carried with me through all these years was that nostalgic feeling of having that chocolate pie at the holidays. She made so many other things. She was just very good making things from scratch, weren't they all, and her chocolate pie recipe is insane guys. So I've taken the last several years trying to recreate it and I think I finally got it last year, but I still have the recipe. It's on a little index card and it's fading. But I still have it and I'll share it with you guys. It's insanely good.

Brittany:Yeah. I love the old recipe cards that have stains on them.

Nichelle:Yes, like you could tell they had them out whenever they were cooking.

Brittany:I know. Now we just have our phones out and Pinterest checking the recipe and I don't know. Sometimes I wish we could go back to the more simple times.

Nichelle: I know we were talking about stockings. Speaking of simpler times when we enjoyed opening stockings as kids.

Brittany: Gosh, we loved stockings. Did you guys do it first or last?

Nichelle:It was always the best, that was what we looked forward to, so we dug into our stockings first. And it's funny because, I think because I knew that was so special for us, I try to make it special for the girls too. So they go immediately to their stocking first as well. The stockings for us, I think I shared this last year, my great grandmother had these molds and they cast santa boots and so they're probably a little over a foot tall. And I'm talking a foot wide down at the bottom. I mean it was like Santa wore a size 13 kind of thing. So there were these hard cast boots, and those were our stockings growing up.

Brittany:That's cool.

Nichelle: I know my mom still won't give them to me.

Brittany: "I'm not bitter."

Nichelle: So the fun stuff was always down at the toe, and we had things like scavenger hunts that would start off from the stocking. I remember one year I'm dating myself, I got a pager down there.

Brittany: Oh my gosh.

Nichelle: I got the purple pager that slid out of the belt holder that you could do voice to text pretty much. You could call in and say what you wanted to text me. So cool. It was so cool.

Brittany:I never had a pager.

Nichelle:That's just a doctor thing now, I guess. But yeah, pagers were cool back then. And I think I got a phone, my car scavenger hunt was on that. So yeah.

Brittany:So the stockings were like legit.

Nichelle:Legit. Yeah. And obviously when I was smaller they were smaller things, but those are the things that are seared in my brain from later teen years.

Brittany:So what do you typically put in your girls' stockings?

Nichelle:So remember the gold coins, the chocolate coins?

Brittany:Mhmm.

Nichelle:I had those, too. Nostalgic for me. You know, had to have the gold coins! So they get the gold coins too. Do they eat them? No. But it's just one of those things, they're like, "oh, the gold coins." And we try to do scavenger hunts. One year we did the scavenger hunt for Dillon, for Madi.

Brittany:For those of you who don't know, Dillon is the chinchilla that Nichelle has as part of her farm of animals.

Nichelle: I mean, I call it a kennel, but farm sounds better.

Brittany:It's like a bunch of dogs, two cats and a chinchilla. Oh my gosh. It's so funny. I always say Dillon is chinchillin.

Nichelle:He is! He is chinchillin. We call him a chimichanga sometimes, he has all kinds of nicknames.

Brittany: So you guys did a scavenger hunt, and then Madi had to go on a hunt to find Dillon.

Nichelle: Yeah. That was a little challenging to be honest. We had an extra bedroom in that house that we were living in. So it worked out that she didn't go check the extra bedroom before. But we were setting up that huge five foot cage the night before. Had him over at a friend's house, she was holding him. So I had to go over there after they went to sleep. That was a whole thing. Praise you, Santa.

Brittany:That is so funny.

Nichelle:All Santa. What were some of your favorite things in your stockings?

Brittany:We always did gift cards, those little mini candles. For a long time, my mom and I would go do stockings for everybody on Christmas Eve. I felt like most of the stuff was done. Presents were wrapped, so Christmas Eve was sometimes a day of "what are we going to do?" Because we always had the Christmas Eve party or dinner with my parents. So during the day, because everybody's off from work. I don't really remember when I was younger, I'm sure they just were things that coordinated with our gifts. But when I got to be a teenager, it kind of became a tradition for my mom and I to go do the stockings. I would do hers, and she would do mine, and then we would together do my dad and brother's. And it would always just be fun to go to Target and just get candy bars, gift cards, things that were useful, but it would always be fun because she and I would be like, "okay, put this in my stocking. Put this in my stocking." And now Chris really likes to do stockings and he always does a really good job with stockings. So he always wraps the little mini Anthropologie candles, and puts a few of those in there. I'm always like, this is going to break, this is heavy. So I feel like there's always good gifts in there, but I'm interested to see what the girls think about it. For their age, we hit up the Target dollar spot and they are in love with all of those little trinkets.

Nichelle:Awesome. Well rounding it out. Is there a specific charity that is just near and dear to your heart during the holidays that you like to give back to?

Brittany:So we always have done stuff with Toys for Tots when we worked our corporate jobs. And then even as Chris continued in the corporate world for a little while after I left, he was always in charge of gathering all the Toys for Tots and getting them to the hospital. One year, we did something on Loverly Grey and had people send in money that wanted to be part of the donation. And then we went and bought all these toys. I think we ended up getting $5,000 worth of toys that we were able to drop off at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. And it's basically, there are a few different toy related charities that we always like to do where we can give back. And I think now this year, getting our kids involved, and my small group, we have all adopted a family. And this lady is a single mom and she has six kids, ages from newborn to 10 years old, so a little bit of a variety. And all the people in our small group, we've got kids those same ages. They've all sent requests of what they want for Christmas, and then we're going to take our kids with us to go shopping for somebody else. And that's something I really want to start doing over the years just to remind my kids to give back. And it's not just about receiving Christmas gifts. I mean Christmas is about so much more than that. So I feel like we have this great opportunity to be able to share that message, but also helping another family. So anything related to giving back or giving toys has always been really fun for us.

Nichelle:Yeah. Mine comes from my corporate job as well. Over the years we raise money for St. Jude. I'm getting chillbumps just thinking about it, seeing what St. Jude does for these families is insane. So yes, every year anybody that ever asks me for a St. Jude donation, I'm like, here, take it. Yes. Please.

Brittany: Exactly.

Nichelle:Because I know what it goes to. I know how much it costs for a wagon for each child. I know how much a meal card is for a family each week. Those things stand so firmly in my head that I'm like, yes.

Brittany: I love that. I feel like it's so important to find a charity or find something that you like to give back to and lean into that in the holiday season. It's so easy to just get tunnel vision and very quickly become "me, me, us, us." But also, this is a great time to be able to teach some lessons and give back and show the importance of that. And there's so many charities that need help or that want volunteers around this time, or donating to families, or just even food drives. I just love all of that type of stuff. It just genuinely makes me feel really good.

Nichelle: Absolutely. Well, I hope that this was so fun for you guys and that you maybe even take a little bit something new away for your holiday season and make it extra special.

Brittany:We're going to share a few things in stories. It's so funny because one thing about the podcast is obviously you can't see us. And the way that this started for me was on Instagram and Instagram stories and I love being able to show y'all what we're talking about. So, I think that's kind of where the podcast Instagram page kind of ties in, because some of these things that we're talking about, we want to show y'all. So throughout this coming week, make sure that you are following along with our stories and we'll show y'all the Saran Wrap ball and share a few stocking stuffer ideas just so you can keep your holidays running smooth with some of our ideas. But we love you guys so much. Thanks for listening today!

Hi friend! I hope you enjoyed this episode on the Life of Loverly podcast. Be sure to snap a screenshot on your phone during your favorite part of the episode, post it to your Instagram stories, and tag us at Life with Loverly. I love seeing what's resonating with you and reposting the spread more kindness along the way. See you next week, friend!

This season of Life with Loverly is produced by Elizabeth Evans Media Productions.