Christmas at Mims House 2020

Earlier this month, I hosted a day of family portraits at Mims House in Holly Springs, North Carolina. These sweet families snuggled, laughed, danced, shook Christmas presents, and jumped in leaves leftover from the fall season. Christmas may have looked a little different this year. All sessions were socially distant and I was masked throughout the sessions. Sanitizer stations were in place at two different entrances. We did everything we could to ensure that we could safely capture family memories in a year where the world has gone crazy. These were some favorites from the day:

I’ve been photographing Malina and Lola Bella-Marie since before baby girl was born. Malina wasn’t comfortable bringing her little one indoors, so we improvised. The grounds of Mims House are gorgeous and Lola and her mom just happened to wear dresses that matched the dancing red-leafed tree that decorated the front lawn that day.

I just met the Weber family this year. They were referred to me by a local photographer who decided to focus on headshots. During our session, Lysandra shared with me that she had been the one to take their family portraits for last year’s Christmas cards. More power to her! For their session, we started family portraits in the indoor Christmas set up and then migrated outside to play in the leaves. Their little ones were so curious about Mims House when they arrived that they wanted to tour the whole place. They took a family walk around the grounds. So I knew we had to wrap the session with the little explorers throwing leaves at their parents on the front lawn.

I’ve been photographing the Harrell family since before little Judah was a thought! I love that Shirnetta made it a priority to be photographed with her husband every year and to send out Christmas cards to their friends and families. When we started the session this year, Judah had just woken up from his nap. After a couple of laps around the property, he was back to his energetic self in no time!

The Adekemi family was new this year too. I met Jade earlier this year. She’s a small business owner herself and did a great job dressing her family up for the holidays. Elaine had the freedom to roam around the set and play with the ornaments and hold the smaller presents under the tree. She loved placing extra ornaments on the tree and she and her parents had a little dance party to the Christmas music over by the tree.