Celebrating Holiday Traditions with New York Life

The holiday season is quickly approaching and I always use this time to reflect on my past holidays and the things I am thankful for. It makes me realize that no matter how many bad days I have, I still have SO MUCH to be thankful for. As I’ve gotten older the holidays have changed for me but in a good way. I’ve carried over my family traditions and created new ones. My FAVORITE holiday tradition is baking cookies with my mom. Every year as we bake the cookies she tells the same stories.

The holiday season is quickly approaching and during that time I always use it to reflect on my past holidays and the things I am thankful for. It makes me realize that no matter how many bad days I have I still have SO MUCH to be thankful for. As I’ve gotten older the holidays have changed for me but in a good way. I’ve carried over my family traditions and created new ones

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My FAVORITE holiday tradition is baking cookies with my mom. Every year as we bake the cookies she tells the same stories. She talks about her grandmother (my great grandmother that passed away before I was born). She talks about how her grandmother would spend WEEKS baking cookies late into the night for family and friends to enjoy over the holiday season (apparently I am not the first night owl in the family).

I think my favorite story is how my great-grandmother was very particular on icing the cookies. She would mix the soup-like icing and then take a knife and individually ice each cookie. It would take her HOURS. After she passed away and my mom got married and made her own batch of cookies after about two cookies she decided icing each one individually with a knife was going to take WAY too long and just dunked the top of the cookie into the icing. And yes sometimes we would lose an ENTIRE COOKIE to the icing but is that really a bad thing?

Every year when my mom gets to this part she talks about how if her grandmother knew what she did she would cringe! Sometimes I wish my great-grandmother was still around just to see her reaction!

Every year I make sure to remember those that are in need and remember them in my holiday shopping. I buy an extra turkey, extra toys or bake extra cookies and drop them off with different organizations. I SMILE and thank all the employees and people I see when I am out and about especially the people outside the stores that are sometimes out in the very cold weather.

What are your family traditions? Would you like to share them on twitter and help people at the same time? New York Life is donating 25 meals for every hashtag sharing holiday traditions and holiday memories with the hashtags #KeepGoingGood and #FeedingAMillion.

And to make it even better @NewYorkLife, @JamieHarrington, and @PragmaticMom are co-hosting a twitter party on November 24 at 5pm PST to help raise awareness about their Keep Good Going Campaign as well as talk about holiday memories and holiday traditions! New York Life will also be giving away over $500 in prizes!

There will be 1 grand prize of a $200 giftcard with a matching $200 donation to Feeding America from BlogHer. As well as 6 additional $50 Visa Giftcards with matching $50 donations to Feeding America from BlogHer.

To enter the Twitter Party sweepstakes, join the Twitter Party on 11/24/2014 at 5pm PST and tell us what you are thankful for this holiday season. Use the hashtags #KeepGoodGoing and #FeedingAMillion. For more information see the rules. Each participant can only enter one time and paid participants are not eligible.

*Through 1/9/15, New York Life will donate $2.50 for each approved post, with a minimum of $25K & a maximum of $100K.
See full terms and conditions at NewYorkLife.com/CelebratingGood. Find info about Feeding America at feedingamerica.org.