ARTICLE POSTED BY: NICHOL NARANJO OF NICHOLNARANJO.COM.
Nichol is the voice behind Nichol Naranjo, the blog shares tips on styling homes, entertaining, fashion, and the simplest pleasures in life. For a daily dose of stunning fashion and home decor tips, follow her on Instagram at @nicholnaranjo.
Christmas is quickly approaching and although it will look very different this year, I want it to be memorable, safe, and special for me and my family. Like the majority of the world, I’ve had to ask myself how my family and I will handle Christmas this year. How will we keep our traditions, while still making the celebration as safe as possible? Aside from my own brainstorming, I also asked my family their thoughts and desires for Christmas this year. I felt it was important that everyone felt included and heard. After all, it’s been a rocky road for all of us. We’re in this together! The first thing on our list of things that we discussed, a couple of months back, was our annual Christmas Eve party. Every year we have a HUGE Christmas Eve party and we basically invite anyone and everyone, and then those people do the same! Of course, this requires a lot of cleaning, cooking, and decorations. Our main goal behind this party is to make sure that everyone we know (and don’t know) has a place to land and feel special on that night. We typically make a ton of food and just enjoy the night!
However, this year we cannot do that. It’s sad, but it’s also our way of loving those people and our own family, by keeping everyone safe. We also knew that we didn’t just want to cancel our celebration though! We still wanted to have our Christmas Eve party on a MUCH scaled-back version, with our family. Of course, now more than ever, cleaning is essential, and I love using my Weiman Products to ensure our house is sparkly and clean. We will still make food, blast music, drink, and be merry, but it will be nice and intimate. I think that the intimacy of this year will carry its own beauty and create new memories that we will always cherish. Since we also just moved into a new neighborhood, I imagine we’ll bundle up and for a nice, leisurely walk on Christmas Eve as well.
Our new home also has original hardwood floors that we found underneath the old carpet and we could not be more excited about them! They do need to eventually be refinished but are in great condition, and so for now, we will just continue giving them a good cleaning. Weiman Hardwood Cleaner to the rescue! This cleaner is also safe to be used around our family and pets!. Win! Win! I love how it makes our floors shine and that it cleans them at the same time! Our new neighborhood seems to have a strong Christmas game, which we LOVE!
There are lots of Christmas lights, decorations, and I know that the main drive and much of the neighborhood will be pathed with luminarias. Luminarias are paper lanterns that are a New Mexican/Latino tradition. Basically, these humble, yet beautiful paper lanterns are made out of brown paper lunch bags that are folded at the top, then we add sand to the base of the bag (about a quarter of the way up), and top it off with tea light candle placed in the top of the sand, creating a beautiful glow. If you’ve never seen the beauty of luminarias, I suggest googling this simple, yet striking decoration. They burn all night and turn themselves out once the candle extinguishes. Tradition has it that the luminarias pathed the path for Joseph and Mary as they searched for lodging in Bethlehem. They can also path the way home.
Christmas Day will look very much the same, small, intimate, and merry. We will make our usual Christmas breakfast - a french toast casserole, with bacon, crispy potatoes, and bell peppers, and mimosas are typically on the menu! We will also eat leftovers later in the day from the day before, which is traditional New Mexican Christmas foods such as posole and tamales. We can’t forget my mom’s famous cheeseball to snack on in the evening!
As we store all of these delicious foods in the refrigerator, I love that I can count on my Weiman Stainless Steel Cleaner to remove all of the smudges and cleans the areas we continually touch so that we can open and shut the refrigerator all day and night, with complete peace of mind. It’s the little things these days, isn’t it?
Now that I have space for a buffet in the new dining room, I can easily set up dessert on this piece, and use my Weiman Granite & Stone Disinfectant to keep the marble top shining and clean! I love having a buffet to use however I need or please! I’m also doing the majority of my shopping online this year, which I’m enjoying! No long lines or crazy parking lots. It’s also forcing me to be even more intentional, and less impulsive in the selection of my gifts for the people I love.
I think the important thing for all of us to continually remind ourselves of this holiday season is that we need to not focus on what we don’t have this year, but rather on what WE DO have, WHO we have, even if they’re sitting at a different table this year. We have the power to still make this Christmas beautiful, memorable, special, and full of old and new traditions. Bottom line, this Christmas is a gift for all who get to celebrate.
