PEOPLE caught up with the singer at Nordstrom’s ‘A Legendary Holiday’ event celebrating the launch of The John Legend x Sperry Collection

PHOTO: MONICA SCHIPPER/GETTY

John Legend is gearing up for a Legend-ary holiday season.

PEOPLE caught up with the EGOT-winner ahead of his performance at Nordstrom’s A Legendary Holiday event at Nordstrom’s flagship store on Friday in New York City, where he and his family are visiting as part of their annual holiday celebrations.

Legend, wife Chrissy Teigen and their children, Luna, 5, and Miles, 3, “love to be in New York for the holidays.” He adds, “Even though we live in L.A. we love to get to the cold and come to the city and walk around, soak up all the energy and the lights and everything.”

The dad of two explains that, now that Luna is “old enough to really know what’s going on” and Miles is “just figuring things out,” that their family is just starting to create their own Christmas traditions.

Thus far, their trip has included their annual tradition of seeing the Radio City Rockettes and Luna and Miles’ first trip to FAO Schwarz. “It was sensory overload and a little crazy, but the kids loved it,” he shares, adding that Luna went home with a baby doll from the store’s infamous adopt-a-baby newborn nursery. “Luna’s very maternal with it,” he said. Teigen posted a video on her Instagram Story over the weekend with Luna and her doll, named “Rainbow Samara Stephens.”

As for what the kiddos are getting for Christmas this year? “Miles tells us he wants an airplane,” he notes, while Luna asked for “a unicorn.”

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“Christmas is all about the kids,” Legend says, telling PEOPLE that he and Teigen don’t exchange big gifts — “We don’t like to do much for each other because we have birthdays, we have Valentine’s Day, we have our anniversary.” This year, the pair celebrated Teigen’s 36th birthday with a pajama party fit for a queen (and robe connoisseur).

Instead of giving gifts to each other, the couple donates throughout the holiday season to various organizations that offer support to folks experiencing homelessness or folks who are incarcerated or formerly incarcerated, as well as organizations like Feeding America and City Harvest.

Legend says, “We figure we’ll focus on everybody else and then for other occasions we’ll focus on each other.”

John Legend. MONICA SCHIPPER/GETTY

The gift that keeps on giving is Legend’s epic style game! The artist, who has been showing off his personal style while coaching on The Voice, can officially add a footwear collaboration with Sperry into the mix for good measure.

While chatting with PEOPLE, Legend — who describes his style as “and homage to classic shapes and silhouettes and great tailoring, but with a few twists of color” — says that his Sperry collection was inspired by what was in his own closet.

“I worked with my stylist, Dave Thomas, and we looked through my closet and tried to get inspiration and gave Sperry direction for what we wanted to do. We always wanted to honor the aesthetic that Sperry has had over the years, but also bring something new to it.”

CRAIG BARRITT/GETTY

Legend, who wore the Sperry x John Legend Authentic Original Vibram Lug Boot for his performance, used it as an example: “They’ve never done anything like this before, but it still has some elements that you would recognize from a Sperry. We thought it’d be fun to introduce some new elements to the silhouettes and shapes they’ve had over the years.”

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Legend also worked closely with his stylist, Dave Thomas, while choosing some of his looks for The Voice, where the EGOT-winner has had some pretty epic style moments as of late. “We try to be colorful, we try to be interesting and wear things you wouldn’t just wear on the street all the time — stuff that’s elevated and has a splash to it for television,” the star explains.

The secret to the perfect look? “It’s always about good tailoring and great fit and great materials and all that, but we want it to catch people’s eye.”