Mike Carroll (left), Aleesa Masihuddin, 15 years old, Aliya Masihuddin, 19 years old, Alina Masihuddin, 16 years old, Binu Mathews wearing matching Christmas pajamas at their home in East Northport. Credit: Morgan Campbell

A picture is worth 1,000 words. But is the $200 matching holiday pajamas worth it?

The answer is "Yes!" As passionate as Santa’s "Ho Ho Ho!" Binu Mathews, 51 years old, an occupational therapist from East Northport, His family of six wears matching jams every Christmas and takes a family portrait for future generations.

“Posting these photos on Instagram is really cute,” said Matthews’ eldest child, 19-year-old Aliya Masihuddin, a student in a joint bachelor and medical degree program. The current portrait includes Matthews, her fiance and her four teenage children, and in some years even their American Husky puppies. Matthews warned not to try to dress the cat. "Cats can't wear it, so forget about it," she said.

Matching pajamas on holiday has become a tradition. For a Long Island family, wearing pajamas on holiday can not only take a lovely photo: it has become a tradition. Credit: Morgan Campbell

But this is not just for photos, of course, the family strives to match. "I think it brings us together at Christmas," Masihuddin said.

Over the years, this trend has been promoted as department stores such as Kohls, specialized companies such as Hanna Andersson, and online sites such as Pajamagram.com promote their products. The company advertises family models whose pajamas are decorated with Christmas trees, holiday lights or "Polar Express" trains. In turn, real families will post their own family pajamas snapshots on social media.

For example, Little Sleepies, which was launched three years ago, mainly sells pajamas; Brittany Cohn, who grew up in Roslin, said that historically, many clothing companies have focused on selling matching clothes for mothers and babies. "Now, we really see the whole family becoming more and more important." A Facebook family buying PJ group called Little Sleepies VIP now has 99,000 members.

Last year, the company only offered one holiday print option for families; this year, they offered seven options, including a royal blue suit with a spinning top. Cohen said she, her husband and her two young The child wore it on the first night of Hanukkah.

For Long Island families who adopt the pajamas tradition, this usually means sleeping in pajamas on Christmas Eve and then enjoying the entire Christmas in pajamas. The family said that the label of their matching dud could go up to $200.

Jenna Emmerich, a 34-year-old professional photographer in Medford, said she is seeing more and more families wanting to wear matching pajamas to take pictures. "Gosh, more than ever. This is crazy," she said. "It's not just Christmas. It's also Hanukkah now. You can also see it on Halloween. It's a whole."

She is also very popular-this year she bought three matching sets of holiday jams for her husband and her 6-year-old son. "We are obsessed with Christmas," she said. In addition, she said, "Really, who doesn't like to wear pajamas?"

Even people without children have embraced this trend. Ashley Edel, 26, of Huntington, and her boyfriend, Michael Nicolosi, 25, of Connecticut, take care of Edel’s dog. She has four, but one of them has recently passed away, so this year's photos will show the couple and three puppies, all of them wearing pajamas decorated with pine trees, holly trees and garlands.

"It's so funny, because everyone is wearing the same clothes. Anything that fits into the spirit of Christmas. Everyone likes photos of standing in front of the Christmas tree," Edel said.

45-year-old Connie Anne Bayer-Hempfling is a full-time mother at Miller Place. She buys matching pajamas for her family, including 6 children aged 3 to 18. She claims to be a diehard fan-she also buys matching pajamas for Easter, Thanksgiving, and even July 4th.

"They want to wear pajamas anyway, why am I not worthy?" she said. This year's set is from The Children's Place and it says "Christmas 2021"-she said she has 25% coupons and $5 in points, so the cost is only about $110-"super cheap," she said.

Bayer-Hempfling said she tried to get her family to wear their clothes sometime before Christmas to take an annual family portrait. "We were so busy on Christmas day, we actually forgot to take a photo with everyone. Someone is always missing." She continued the tradition of matching pajamas that her own parents started when she and her siblings grew up. Said that she believes that this tradition has sprung up due to social media, and that families see pictures of other families and decide to adopt this approach as good.

Danielle Costagliola, a 35-year-old children’s librarian from Mount Sinai, initiated such a tradition this year with her 4-year-old fraternal twins and her parents; earlier this fall, she was in Great Wolf Lodge in Poconos showed everyone the matching pajamas during their vacation, and they took a family portrait in front of the hotel’s huge holiday tree. Costaliola said she plans to use it to make family Christmas cards. The pajamas have black and red buffalo plaid pants. Everyone has a wolf on their shirt, and they are marked as "Pop Pop Wolf" or "Brother Wolf". "This is very special for grandparents," Costaliola said.

35-year-old Jessica Sullivan is a real estate agent in Port Jefferson. After the birth of her 9-year-old son, she started buying pajamas for her children. When her husband's siblings started to have children, she also gave the pajama set to her child's cousin. This year she bought it for seven children between 8 months and 9 years old.

"I chose Hanna Andersson because they are really durable and can be worn for a whole year," she said. But because the brand is expensive-the full price may be $48 per pair-she shopped and used coupon codes at the company's Veterans Day sale. "I spent $125 this year on seven pairs of pajamas," she said. Children wear them when they gather at Sullivan’s parents-in-law’s house on Christmas Eve to watch movies and drink hot chocolate, and then go home to wear them to sleep. "I think it's really interesting," she said.

Mathews asked her teenagers for their opinions on the design selected each year. "The kids will say,'We have made red, let's make a different color,'" Matthews said. She shop at any cheapest store, including Kohls or Walmart. "I tried to get a coupon," Matthews said. “It’s close to $200 because we have a lot of people.” But it’s worth it because the kids wear pajamas all winter and they often need new pajamas because they get bigger every season, she said.

Matthews said that at this point, not all family members fully support this tradition. Her 18-year-old son said "this is too lame," she said, but he would agree to wear pants. He might do this for several years, because Matthews said she plans to keep this tradition indefinitely. "Until I run out of prints on my pajamas."

Beth Whitehouse writes about family, parenting, and great things to do with the children of Long Island. She served as the editor of News Daily and shared the 1997 News Daily Staff Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the crash of TWA 800.

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