The holidays and beginning of December always feels a little bit softer to me. There is a quiet kind of joy in the air, the kind that settles in your home before you even notice it. I see it in the lights that pop up around town and in the way families start gathering a little closer as the days get shorter. I smell it in the warm spices from holiday baking and hear it in the familiar Christmas music that seems to play everywhere.

In my own home, this season has shaped so many sweet memories. Every year our family ends up in the kitchen making treats that never last long. We pile into the car for a slow evening drive to look at the lights. Someone always makes cocoa that is a little too sugary, and we usually end up laughing our way through a night of wrapping gifts. None of it is perfect. But it is our rhythm. It is the way we come back to one another.
Those moments have become stories my children and grandchildren talk about even now. Simple things, ordinary things, yet they are the pieces that make a family feel rooted. They are the memories that gently remind us where our hearts feel most at home.
If you are hoping to bring more of that warmth into your December, let this be your nudge. Bake something together. Take an evening walk or drive to look at the lights. Watch your favorite holiday movie again. Start one small new tradition or hold onto an old one that deserves to stay.
And if your family loves to mark each season with updated photos, or if you want this year to be the one you begin a tradition of Christmas portraits, I would love to help. A session in December is more than gathering everyone for a picture. It is a chance to pause the hurry and preserve the love that carries your family through every season.
I would be delighted to create something meaningful for you this Christmas, something your family will treasure for years to come.
Paula Goforth is a Fort Worth-based photographer specializing in family, newborn, and maternity portraits. Serving Fort Worth, Keller, Southlake, Dallas, and surrounding areas, she creates timeless, heartfelt images that beautifully capture life’s most precious moments.
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