We Asked Lakanto Staff: What Are Your Favorite Holiday Traditions?

Nov 04, 2021 09:58:18AM

Some people want to ease into the holiday season, while others dive headlong into North Pole mode as soon as the last Trick-or-Treater leaves the porch. Whether you keep your holidays low-key or you’re an unofficial elf-in-training, we can all agree that it’s the traditions that make the holiday memories stick with us for a lifetime. 

We thought it would be fun to find out how Lakanto staff celebrate their Thanksgiving and holiday seasons, and they did not disappoint! Maybe you’ll take some of the season’s best inspo and start a new tradition in your home, too.

Kacie Jones, Social Media Specialist kicks off the holiday season with family and the tree. 

Each year we go up to our family property to cut down a tree. Then, we spend the next night decorating it, decorating the house, and doing Raclette. It’s basically this indoor electric grill thing you can cook on.

Megan Mitchell, Social Media Manager makes her whole house smell like pie!

Every Thanksgiving after we eat, we put up our Christmas Tree and decorate! We also make sure to have a pumpkin pie and apple pie baking to fill the house with the aroma of holiday spirit! We play vinyl records of classic christmas songs, and have a huge game night with various games and a Christmas movie playing in the background.

Rachel Litteral, Account & Customer Service Manager: gratitude and lights. 

For Thanksgiving, my family turns on the fireplace and drinks hot cocoa (or Lakanto Drinking Chocolate for myself and a few of my sugar-free cousins!) then we sit around the fire and talk about our favorite memories from the year, and what we are thankful for. 

For Christmas, my family always drives around to look at all the cool lights or shows that are going on in our neighborhood. My personal favorite are the elaborate projector shows. I will always go out of my way for them.

Joann Rentz, Senior Marketing Communications Manager gets into the Christmas spirit with nine days of celebration, La Novena (and of course, food!). 

Nine days leading up to Christmas Eve, my extended family gets together to celebrate La Novena, an Ecuadorian religious Christmas tradition, where we pray and sing. La Novena is a Catholic tradition and every night there are different prayers. It helps prepare us for Christmas. Afterwards, we have dinner and holiday treats! 

Rebekah Hair, Customer Service Account Coordinator sets the holiday season in motion with a little friendly competition. 

Every Thanksgiving our whole family gets together to cook loads of food and then after our feast we play Bingo. Over the year we prepare for this annual bingo game and pool our findings onto the table. The table is lined with little toys, snacks, games, candy and other random tidbits that we fight to win. After putting our new findings in personal bags, we eat homemade apple pie with vanilla ice cream and play many, many games.

Mofan Sanderson, Quality Control Supervisor trims the tree with significant events from the year. 

We decorate our tree with what happened that year. We will find ornaments that represent certain events. For example if we went to Hawaii that year, we'll find a pineapple ornament to put on the tree; if one of us graduated that year we'll find a little graduation cap ornament, etc

Britnee Stacy, Accounts & Customer Services Coordinator has a pajama movie party!

We watch Christmas Vacation every year in our matching Pajamas on Christmas Eve. I have a sugar-free, gluten-free recipe for ya too!

Favorite recipe: 

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups mochiko* (sweet rice flour; 1 lb)
  • 2 1/2 cups Lakanto Monkfruit Golden Sweetener
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 (14-oz) cans unsweetened coconut milk (not low-fat)
  • 5 large eggs
  • 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

  1. Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F.
  2. Whisk together mochiko, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk together coconut milk, eggs, butter, and vanilla in another bowl. Add coconut mixture to flour mixture, whisking until batter is combined.
  3. Pour batter into an ungreased 13- by 9-inch baking pan, smoothing top, and bake until top is golden and cake begins to pull away from sides of pan, about 1 1/2 hours. Cool cake completely in pan on a rack, about 2 hours. Cut mochi into 24 squares before serving.

How do you kick off the holidays? Leave a comment on our Instagram post and see how the Lakanto community is getting into the holiday spirit this year!

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1 comment

Would love a recipe for sugar free cranberry sauce. Thanks

Susan Weber

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