Holiday Traditions + A Chance For You To Give Back (and Win $50!)

Growing up, I was always a big fan of family traditions. I love how I can look back throughout the years, and they are some of my most treasured memories that I will never forget. They always stick out in my mind and provide me with such happy thoughts!

One of my favorite traditions, hands down, was decorating our Christmas tree as a family and making a whole night out of it by watching Christmas movies and listening to holiday music during the process. I knew when Billy and I got married that I wanted to continue this tradition (no matter how busy our schedules are at the time...no excuses!), but also add a twist to it. Our first year in our house together (and being married), we decided that every year we would exchange Christmas ornaments with each other as well. It's a small gesture, but one that is special to us.

Billy has always been far better at gifting ornaments than I am. For the first year in our house, he got me a personalized "Our First Home" ornament that I love. For our first year married, he got me a wedding ornament with our wedding date on it...and so on. You get the idea. :) Not only are they adorable, it's also so nice to look back at all the ones he's given me and what that year represented for us...

This year with a baby on the way (and possibly making his debut around Christmas!), we are obviously really excited to be able to include Camden in these traditions (maybe a baby ornament is in my future) in the upcoming years.

Welcoming our first child soon is reason enough for me to feel extremely thankful this holiday season! When we put up our tree the other day (who else has their tree up already?!), for the LAST time as just the two of us, it was so special. We reflected on all the years we've been together and how our family will be growing in just a few short months...it was so nice and something I'll never forget. Plus, our tree is looking pretty good this year, if I do say so myself...

Another tradition that we talked about doing last year (but never got the chance to implement) is volunteering to help serve meals to families in need. I knew this year that needed to change! We've been so grateful for our families' love and support these last 8 months with our pregnancy that we knew we wanted to give back in some way. I never really knew how to go about signing up to do this, but I'm happy to say that this year we found an organization early on that we could do this with, and will be helping at our local shelter this Wednesday.

If you're wondering about how you can help this holiday season, I'm here with a solution...

New York Life is donating 25 meals to Feeding America for every tweet that includes #KeepGoodGoing and #FeedingAMillion. How awesome is that? A short tweet, that can take less than a minute to prepare, will serve 25 meals! You can also visit New York Life's website to share your own photo for their Keep Good Going campaign. Such a great idea...get on it folks! (Just make sure to include both those hash tags!)

Now, for your chance to win a $50 Gift Card AND a $50 donation in your name to Feeding America on behalf of BlogHer, share with me in the comments: What are you family's holiday traditions?
*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.


Sweepstakes Rules:
No duplicate comments.
You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
1. Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
2. Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
3. Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
4. For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.
This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. The notification email will come directly from BlogHer via the sweeps@blogher email address. You will have 72 hours to respond; otherwise a new winner will be selected.
The Official Rules are available here.
This sweepstakes runs from 12/1/2014 – 12/31/2014.
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