Linda Carey, left, was given the dress by her grandmother and first wore it in 1959. It has passed through girls in the family to her granddaughter, right.
Every family has its own unique Christmas traditions, and in the Carey family, the tradition spans 56 years and five generations.
It comes in the form of a tiny, red velvet dress.
"When I was a little girl, my grandma bought me a dress for my second Christmas," Linda Carey, 57, from Indiana, told INSIDE EDITION.
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She was first photographed in the dress in 1959. When she was 12 or 13, she got a hope chest to store items for when she married one day.
"I put the dress in there, hoping I'd have a little girl, and she'd wear the dress too," she said.
Sure enough, 24 years later, Linda had a baby girl, Lindsay, and knew she would be able to pass on the dress to the next generation. When Linda's younger daughter Allison was born, she, too, wore the dress.
"I think it's amazing," said Lindsay, now 33. "Probably, at a young age, my mom didn't realize she was going to save it and have her daughters and her granddaughter in the dress."
As she spoke to IE, Lindsay bounced her own daughter, eight-year-old Leiya, on her knee. Leiya had her portrait taken in the dress when she was two.
But this year, the dress will go unworn. Tate, Lindsay's two-year-old son, will wear a red velvet vest instead, a new tradition for boys in the family.
When asked if the family had ever thought about putting Tate in the dress, the women laughed in unison: "No!"
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"[Tate]'s father wouldn't let me do it," Linda laughed.
Linda added that, before Leiya was born, she wanted to have the dress framed and put on her wall. Instead, she decided to keep it in storage so future generations would be able to wear it, too.
Her second daughter, Allison, now 27, said she hopes to have a baby girl one day, in order to continue the family tradition.
"If not, one day, I'll have a boy and he'll wear the vest," Allison said.
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