“O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, How faithful are thy branches.”

Stuck in my head as I’m writing this, Christmas songs are so dang catchy!

So what brings us to a Christmas tree farm when we have an artificial poorly packed up in the basement from last year? Nostalgia, and Instagram of course!

The Instagram portion is what my husband was joking about the whole time, but we were there to spark some nostalgia and start some fun traditions for Quinn.

I wanted to document our little adventure, and wanted to share how to capture some great Christmas Tree farm images of yourselves!

The smell of pine always reminds me of my dad. Our Christmas Eve tradition was going and getting the Christmas Tree, we’d spend the evening giving it all the trims, unpacking the ornaments, and having him tell me stories of each one. He had his favorites which he’d always put up first and use the christmas lights to feature them just right on the tree. I’d watch him and play pretend in the branches like they were my new barbie dream house- i was tree obsessed!!!

The obsession didn’t change much as I got older, and I try to put our tree up as soon as possible. With the arrival of our son last year, we did something i promised myself i’d never do – we went artificial.

I know… i Know… is it really christmas without that real pine smell? How many Yankee Balsam Fir candles do we need to light to get the same sent? The answer is 3, perfectly placed around the house, do they smell the same? No. Is it close enough, yes!

Cameras out, ready set go! I love my Fuji XT-2. Every image on here was shot by me (or my husband with some tender love and guidance). I was so excited to get a new 16mm prime lens. It’s wonderful in low light and the distortion from the wide angle is so minimal! We arrived around 3pm – the magic hour in New Jersey in November, and we took pictures till the sun dipped over the trees in the distance.

The camera was set up on a tripod for the ones of the three of us, and I knew I’d want some options of framing with pine branches and to get those beautiful sunlight blown out moments. With Ken and Quinn in the frame, I’d adjust and set up till the lighting was just right and with the timer set on 10 sec, i’d run into the picture.

Not going to lie, it’s hard to run in at the right moment, not look super staged, align on what I’m doing, when Ken is doing, and what our toddler is doing.

The best part was being natural and giggling and following Quinn’s direction and we just went with it.

After capturing some shots of the three of us, we let Quinn explore the ground a bit- which usually means him finding something to put in his mouth, like a stick or some rocks, the glamorous life of a toddler! I switched to my 56mm lens and just let him do his thing. the 56mm is great for portraits and those close up moments.

I loved this day with the boys. It brought back so many wonderful memories and made me suuuuuper tempted to grab and axe and chop down even a mini tree for the house! However word of reason won, the reason being we’re headed to Europe for a few weeks, and the poor little tree wouldn’t make it without watering – there’s always next year though…

I hope this inspires you to get outside with your camera this holiday season!