As of today Christmas is only 11 days away.

Christmas has always been a bittersweet and somewhat quiet holiday for Hubby and I.

We have always spent Christmas Day at home together, just the two of us. Family events were always either on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day and in recent years we have opted to skip going to any of them.

This year is different though. This Christmas will be Bella's first Christmas and our first Christmas as a family.

I never really thought of it much. I think I just buried my feelings and the need to have a family of my own for years. But now that we're here and we have Bella, for the first time in years I'm actually looking forward to Christmas day.

Starting New Traditions

Considering this is our first Christmas with bub I decided to go with traditional Christmas colours for the tree. I also like how green and red are Italian colours and it's a little nod to half of Bella's heritage.

One of the things I always wanted to do but figured it's a bit pointless since it was just Hubby and I was Christmas Eve boxes.

Yeh I know, she's only a few weeks old and she doesn't really understand it but I figured she can look back at the photos when she's older so it's not a complete waste right?

Since I'm making a Christmas Eve box for Bella I figured I may as well make a box for us so the red box is hers and the green one is ours.

Aussies, if you're after a box like these, we got ours from the reject shop. They come in 3 sizes, these are the large ones.

So far this is what's in the boxes.

Bella's first ever Christmas Eve book. A unicorn hooded towel and a mermaid loofah/washer with matching hair brush. I still have to wash bub's Christmas Eve outfit and maybe get her a toy? It's a bit hard shopping for a newborn. I'm sure it'll be easier and funner when she's older.

For our box, I got us new slippers. I wanted to get matching pyjamas for all of us but it's oddly hard to find. To fill in the box I'm getting snacks and liqueur for our Christmas Eve movie.

I also ordered custom baubles for all of us and will need Hubby to pick them up sometime next week.

Eventually, when she's old enough I want to do elf on the shelf, advent calendars and to decorate the tree together

Another new Christmas tradition is havi.ng the grans over to celebrate with us.

It's definitely a change from just us two. A very nice change :)

Do you have any Christmas traditions in your family? What do you do for Christmas?