My most favorite but hectic season is the Christmas card season! I love, love, love Christmas so being able to spend my time working on holiday themed family portraits is a delight! Especially since I get into the mood by listening (and singing along) to Christmas songs while editing! This year I squeezed 12 family sessions into a four-week period. That was fun!! But each session was so unique and fun, I’m already looking forward to next year!

Let’s start with the Mullis Family. This session was just before Thanksgiving and it was the first dose of cold that we had in NC so far this year. It was a very cold 40 degrees and they had a 2-month old braving the cold for some beautiful (first!) family photos! We met at a cute little park inside a neighborhood in Wilmington. Maintenance was setting up lights for Christmas and lucky for us, they started a roaring fire in the outdoor fireplace! Perfect photo op when we were feeling really chilly! After about 20 minutes little Max was telling us it was time to go, so we went back to the warmth of their home and finished some really Christmas-themed shots of him!

My next sessions took place at Brunswick Town with Briana, John and Peyton. Every time I photograph this family, Peyton just gets cuter and cuter! This day was also very cold and Peyton was being so adorable and patient! She didn’t complain once about it, but would just shiver in the cutest voice ever and then giggle about it. I want to just eat her up!!

My next session with the Boldt family was rescheduled initially due to cold weather and the day we met, it was so warm on the beach you could comfortably wear flip flops! That’s NC weather for ya! The biggest roller-coaster of temperatures on Earth! Well when I met them on the beach, I was greeted by the cutest little toddler all dressed up in a cute Christmas outfit. Over the summer when I first met them, their baby was just barely starting to walk, and now she was running around, as cute as ever! And they had a super cute idea for their Christmas card we even had total strangers stopping to take a picture of the set up!

The next family was the Steelman family and I went to their lovely home in Wilmington for their family photos. This was their baby girl’s first Christmas and both sets of proud grandparents were present for a full-family session! It was another cold morning so we did a very quick session outside in a neighbor’s nicely landscaped backyard then went back inside for photos with the Christmas tree! My favorite pictures of all are the ones of little Charlotte inside the Christmas present. I took so many and it was so hard choosing just a few because she is the cutest baby!