love of local in Utah
New Southern Christmas Traditions
The Brown girls were on the hunt for new holiday traditions. We like to try new festivals, concerts, shopping places, plays, etc. Not so much into traditions that are done at home. Which didn’t translate well into 2020 life. However in 2018 with our first year in Charleston we wanted to try some new ones out.
Shopping on historic King Street for Secret Sister Exchange TOTALLY was cooler! However they bought nothing from any unique boutiques. Just from Urban Outfitter in the pointless gift section.
We headed over to the Belmont Hotel to see their train set up…
For our service project this year we participated in getting Santa for a couple families. The girls always enjoy choosing shoes, clothing, coats, and toys for other children around their age.
Going to the Nutcracker is a must and we couldn’t get tickets to a Nutracker that a friend was in so we went to the “fancy” one in town. Yes it was fancy but the audience did not know how to act. On phones, walking around, talking to each other loudly. It was insane and we were bummed!! It was funny to hear my girls’ all talk about audience etiquette.
Holiday Pops at the Charleston Symphony WAS a hit! They had a very talented mix of singers, bagpipers, instrumentalists, etc. Sure, they would all hope it was half as long.
We hosted some holiday parties with church friends in hopes of getting the girls to get to know people. We really struggled with our ward. However Cameron & Abby did really end up clicking with girls younger than them that were sweethearts. This night we did a cookie contest to help two new girls in the ward get to know people that had just moved in a couple of months after us.
Cameron’s sweet friend Rebekah replaced Abby at our holiday play we went to. This year it was Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Meeting Rebekah was one of Cameron & Abby’s highlights of living in South Carolina.
SO….the holiday outfits I chose this year Abby and Cameron DESPISED. They said they looked like a depressed poet. You know…now looking back I kinda see it.
One of my favorite things was the beach decorated with holiday decor. It was so bizarre to be living somewhere where it was the holidays but with no snow!!
Choosing a Christmas tree was a bit of a buzzkill because there was no trekking to the mountains.
For teacher gifts we gave comfy socks with movie tickets stuck in them and handwritten notes. This is one of my favorite things about the holidays, to have the girls sit down and write to all the people who are apart of their village in life.
We had extra time to hang out with the best next door neighbors ever; Claire, Libby & Norah. Over the break we did late nights, movie nights, craft days, and went to the trampoline park.
One that wasn’t pictured but that was a hit was going to James Island County Park for their holiday celebration. A drive through of cool light set ups. Then places to park and get out and cook S’Mores and visit Santa.
We had a few new ones to try that had to do with the water however the two Decembers we there they had abnormally wet & rainy Decembers and the events were rained out.
