Family Holiday Outfits

Lindsay Ramcharitar
by Lindsay Ramcharitar

The holiday season is upon us which means ... BRING ON THE STRESS! Between getting the perfect gifts, serving the best food, and having a house that screams cheer - one can feel the pressure before the thought of outfits even crosses their mind. I am here to help with that. Not only am I showing you a few outfits my family and I have worn over the past couple of years, I am going to help you understand how I did it!



Let's start with this year's Christmas photoshoot (yes, we do a photoshoot for Christmas). We actually do 2 photoshoots a year; one for each kid's birthday (my daughter's birthday happens to be 9 days before Christmas so we lump her birthday pictures into our Christmas shoot). Anyway ... back to the outfits. How I normally choose our outfits depends on what is in our closets. I usually start with my closet and see what I have that I want to wear and them go and pick out everyone else's clothes. The reason for this, is we are usually the MOST critical of ourselves so if the outfit we are wearing is one we love, we will love the photos!!



This year, I got this green pleated skirt and beige sweater on sale at H&M ($8 for BOTH) when the stores opened back up in the summer. When it came time to decide what we were going to wear, I knew it would be perfect. This year I was going for a more sophisticated look and I think we achieved it. I looked through everyone else's closet to see what we had to match and luckily the only thing I had to buy was my daughter's dress (Amazon for $21!). My son had this suit for his Communion this year and he borrowed my husband's tie. Of course my husband had his entire outfit so overall it was an easy decision for this year's look!


Sometimes we don't have anything in our closets that scream "WEAR ME" so then I have to turn to my kid's closets. For this family look, my daughter had this skirt sitting in her drawer for the longest so I figured, might as well wear it before it doesn't fit anymore! Once I had the skirt, I looked for the rest of her outfit which luckily I had everything but the tights! After I got her look together, I then looked for my son's things. Thankfully my mom works at Bloomingdales and she buys some pretty cute things, so I had this great blue and white top to match my daughter as well as these sneakers which were a birthday gift. Once their outfits were done, I showed my husband and said "find something" ;) He usually the easiest person to dress. I ended up just pulling out all black and adding the leopard belt to match her skirt.


Trust me, it is not always this easy. Most of the time, I am running to the store to find last minute pieces!


The third rule I follow is: coordinate without matching identically. Sometimes matching too many patterns or colors can make the outfits look chaotic. For this next look we based our outfits off my daughter's dress. Here we actually have multiple patterns going on (4 to be exact if you look closely to each one of our shirts) but they blend together because they are subtle and the colors are different. The colors coordinate without being too much and the patterns blend well because they are minimal.


Here are some other family outfit ideas:


Another rule of thumb is the color palette does not need to be one color. Sometimes you would think "she is wearing yellow, so I NEED to wear yellow too". No - as long as the color palette has the same tones to it, you can do it. For example, for last year's look, we went with deep earthy tones. This year, I was not so lucky to have things in our closets so off to the store I went. I started with this blue dress for my daughter and built off of that. I ended up buying my son hunter green pants and a blue checkered shirt to match. I got myself a cream sweater with this burnt orange skirt (had the boots) and bought a new button down for my husband. As you can see, no one is wearing the same thing but it coordinates because the tones of the clothes are the same.


Here is one last family look we have done. This look started with my daughter's floral dress. When I saw it, I thought it was perfect for her for her "birthday shoot". Once I had the dress, again I went looking through all of our closets and unfortunately, I had to buy some things. I had to get this floral dress for myself as well as the yellow sweater for my son.


This was a LONGGG post and I hope you got this far! If you did, THANK YOU! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial on how you can put together family looks. Again:


1) Check your closet FIRST, make sure you are comfortable in what you are wearing! This is how you will get the best photos.


2) Check your families closet's next to see if there is something you can use as a starting point. Once you have this piece, it will be easy to build the rest of the look.


3) Coordinate without matching. You can mix patterns/prints as long as it is subtle and minimalistic.


4) Stick within a color palette/color tone for optimal photos.


5) Pick a location that will bring out the best in your looks! We try to do a different location every year but we pick the location based on our outfits!


If you have any questions, or need any help putting together family outfits, please reach out! I would love to help you get the best look ever. If you enjoyed this tutorial and want more on my looks, follow me on Instagram @SimplyStyledCloset.


-xo

Lindsay

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