Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Peta Murgatroyd Share Their Holiday Plans With 2 Kids and a Puppy (Exclusive)

Life comes at you fast. Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Peta Murgatroyd quickly learned just that when their lovely family suddenly went from a family of three to a family of five earlier this year!

ET’s Denny Directo sat down with the Dancing With the Stars pros for a partnership with Hallmark and the couple shared their plans for the holidays amid the beautiful chaos going on in their household. Maksim and Peta were awaiting baby No. 2 back in April when they introduced an 8-week-old puppy, Hachi, into the fold. A month later, Peta gave birth to son Rio.

She was eight months pregnant when Hachi joined the brood, which also includes the couple’s 6-year-old son, Shai. With Christmas and New Year’s practically just around the corner, Maksim and Peta are in the midst of figuring out their holiday plans, which may include a trip to Utah to spend time with the family of his brother Val‘s wife, Jenna Johnson. 

While Maksim and Val are more accustomed to celebrating New Year’s, Maksim tells ET he’s happy that Peta and Jenna are into celebrating Christmas. 

“We’re just kind of figuring out the schedules for [Christmas] but always gonna be with family,” Peta tells ET. 

“Val and I, [our] family tradition is more anchored in New Year’s Eve celebration,” Maksim added. “We love that Peta and Jenna celebrate Christmas, so that way we kinda do it with that part of the family. And, you know, I love Utah. I love combining [families], getting a little bit of snow, hopefully. The cold weather. Because Shai is like, ‘Papa, it’s gonna get cold soon.’ I’m like, ‘Baby, it’s already cold in a lot of other places.'”

But when the families get together to celebrate Rio’s first Christmas, there’s going to be a whole new dynamic.

“Uncle Val used to show up with very expensive gifts ’cause he was just uncle Val,” Maksim quips. “Now he’s father Val.”

Back in January, Val and Jenna welcomed their first child, a son.

“So, he’s gonna be completely different,” said Maksim with a laugh.

But as special as the holidays can be, they can also bring added stress. Like shopping for gifts, which can sometimes turn into a chore when there’s tons of family members. But in the spirit of holiday giving, Maksim and Peta also don’t want to forget about the non-family members who are part of their everyday lives. And therein lies Maksim and Peta’s partnership with Hallmark, which collaborated with the mobile payment service Venmo for a more convenient, yet thoughtful, way to give gifts.

“We’ve got a lot of people in our lives we want to really thank but we want to do it conveniently for us, so Hallmark and Venmo collaborated on a beautiful card,” Maksim shares. “For Peta, it’s very important that it’s handwritten. For me, it’s the convenience of being able to include some cash in there.”

The short of it is, Hallmark’s created a physical or digital greeting card that features a Venmo QR code that recipients scan to receive the cash gift.

“It’s an incredible, brilliant combination,” Maksim raves.

No more fighting at the mall for gifts!

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