I love the holiday season. For me, the stretch of time between the Friday after Thanksgiving (nope, not a minute earlier) and New Year's Day is stuffed full of food, friends, plus birthday cake for me and my husband. It's truly the most wonderful time of the year, and it gets even more wonderful if you get to spend it with a baby. A baby makes the holiday season even better — yes, such a thing is even possible — and the combination of new baby magic with the magical feeling of the holidays is seriously an amazing thing to experience.
Babies are so special, with their adorable little faces, their eyes full of light and love, and their total lack of worldly experience (and accompanying been-there-done-that jadedness). Their innocence, plus the generosity and cheer of the holidays, just makes the whole season even more joyous. That, and it's usually too cold to want to leave your house, so having a baby is the perfect excuse to not have to leave your house if people are trying to make you come to holiday events you don't want to go to.
The following are just a few ways a baby makes the holidays even better, though I could seriously list several days’ worth of additional reasons. Here's wishing you and your baby a happy holiday season. If you celebrate Christmas, may your babies and pets not team up to knock over your Christmas tree. If you celebrate Hanukkah and/or Kwanzaa, may your little ones keep their distance from the candles. And no matter what you celebrate, may your children not grow up to hate you too much for plastering their hilarious (but potentially embarrassing to a future pre-teen) holiday photos all over social media.
Way Cuter Holiday Photos
Sure, your Ugly Christmas Sweater Party photos were hilarious, and your holiday engagement photos truly amazing. However, babies in holiday photos definitely tops that, even if the baby isn't doing anything particularly special, because baby.
Babies In Reindeer Ears
Animal ears on babies is my favorite. Reindeer ears on babies during the holiday season takes that to a level that makes my ovaries hurt just to contemplate.
Basically All The Amazing Baby Dress-Up Opportunities
Christmas babies in red and green plaid? Kwanzaa babies in resplendent African dress? Hanukkah babies in every shade of blue and silver? Yes, I'll take them all, please and thank you.
They’re The Perfect Excuse To Skip Out On Holiday Events You’d Otherwise Feel Vaguely Obligated To Attend
It’s a serious drag when your baby keeps you from stuff you do want to do — RIP, close friend’s drunk Christmas party I haven’t been able to attend since pregnancy — but they repay that sacrifice by getting you out of stuff you don’t want to do.
“I’m so sorry I can’t make your no-alcohol-allowed, dry-ass cookie exchange, Distant Relative Eleventy Times Removed Who Found Me On Facebook And Now Guilts Me Into Way Too Frequent Contact. I’m just super concerned about taking a baby out during cold and flu season, unless it's totally necessary.”
Babies Mesmerized By Dreidels
"Whaaaaa? This thing spins? How did you do that? Do it again like eighty more times!"
Hilarious Holiday Photos
Unlike the rest of us who've spent a lifetime learning to pose for photos and such, babies don't know or care why their picture is being taken (babies DGAF in general). They're just doing their own thing, learning how to move their bodies, trying to eat or poop or whatever while everybody else is trying to be all proper, and the juxtaposition is absolute perfection.
If your family takes holiday portraits (or if you just happen to be having your picture taken in the course of holiday activities), the baby is pretty much guaranteed to be the most entertaining part.
Witnessing Adorable Holiday Firsts
Baby's first holiday season is so cute, especially if they're just old enough to be somewhat mobile, but still tiny. Watching my baby shove his happy li'l face full of latkes, crawl around under Christmas trees, and open his first gifts was just the best, sweetest thing ever. Just unbearably, impossibly cute.
Babies And Wrapping Paper
Babies love to tear up paper. During the rest of the year, that's frowned upon, so bigger people stop them. But during the holidays, you're actually supposed to rip up paper in order to get to the presents the paper is covering. Babies take full advantage of this situation, and it's cute as all get out.
Babies And Boxes
Fact: mobile babies love boxes. Between all the boxes arriving from online shopping experiences, and all the gift boxes from various presents to and from your family, babies are straight up living their best lives during the holiday season, and we are super lucky to get to witness it.
Babies And Holiday Cheer
Holiday cheer — that generous, happy-for-happy's-sake feeling that people get during the holiday season — is already lovely enough on its own. But when holiday cheer meets that heartwarming feeling new babies inspire, something truly magical happens.
It's enough to fill even the Grinchiest heart with joy (and often, to fill your pockets or bags with free stuff, 'cause people love giving free stuff to moms and cute babies, especially during the holiday season. I got so much loot while casually strolling through holiday markets and local businesses during my son's first holiday season. Score.)
Actual Baby New Years
Bonus if you actually have a baby on New Year's Day, ‘cause wow. (Also, so sorry you missed out on some of the holiday drinking and eating-tasty-party-foods-of-questionable-refrigeration-status.)
Either way, babies dressed up like Baby New Year? Amazing. This doesn't get enough play, as far as I'm concerned, so those of you who make this happen and post your photos in social media for the rest of us, you're the real MVPs.
People Will Often Come To You Instead Of Making You Travel
If your family is spread all over the country, making holiday plans usually involves some ungodly combination of planes, trains, and/or automobiles that makes me shiver just thinking about it. But if you have a little baby, then folks are often willing to travel to visit you rather than making you travel to visit them. Not having to brave Amtrak or use up all your frequent flier miles to spend what feels like two seconds with your family? Getting to laze out a bit over holiday break instead of waking up at the crack of dawn to road trip to out-of-town family? That's the happiest holiday gift of all.
