It’s giveaway time! It’s a massive one guys and I’m pretty excited! For the past week or so I’ve been featuring recipes using Staub, Shun, Cuttingboard.com, Finex, and Kitchen Aid and now’s the time to finally bundle everything up and give it all away. Well, not literally, because you’re actually going to win new items, so there’s no real bundling, just figurative bundling.
win this staub!
I hope you’ve been following along – so far I’ve made Slow Braised Japanese Chashu Pork, Mini Puff Pastry Roses, Caramel Corn and Rice Krispie Mix, and Mint Snowman Marshmallows, but with these giveaway items you can make pretty much anything, which is perfect for the holiday season.
win this shun knife and cuttingboard.com boo’s block!
I love food – as I’m sure you know – and one of my favorite Christmas memories is of me, my brother, and Christmas chocolates. As little kids, come the first of December, we would get chocolate advent calendars. I still see them around now: those thin cardboard drugstore boxes featuring a Christmas picture with tiny numbered windows and chocolates hiding behind them. My brother and I lived for that moment at the end of the day when we got to pry open the cardboard for our long awaited treat. Our eager fingers would melt the chocolate ever so slightly as we tried to eat our chocolates as slowly as possible.
win this finex cast iron pan!
One year, we got it in our heads that we didn’t want to wait. We snuck our calendars down to the basement – it was cold and dark down there and I didn’t like it but my brother convinced me it was the best place to hide – and ate every single chocolate. We ate the entire month of December. And the thing is, we did it in a gentle, artful way where we could close back the windows so that at a casual glance, you couldn’t tell that the calendar was ravaged.
win this kitchen aid!
Maybe it was the sugar-high making us crazy, but we totally thought we got away with it. That is, until it was time for our nightly ritual with our parents. Needless to say, there was no chocolate treat that night. Or the next night, or the next. But, it was okay, because come Christmas morning, there were still presents under the tree. Apparently, our chocolate binge didn’t leave us on Santa’s naughty list, which was a huge relief, because, presents.
These days I’m more into giving than receiving so I couldn’t resist putting together this giveaway for you! I wish I could send everyone a Christmas present but since I can’t, I thought I’d do the next best thing and giveaway some of my favorite things. So, let me know your favorite holiday memory and maybe you’ll be the lucky reader who wins! Good luck!
Giveaway: I’ve teamed up with some of my favorite brands to do a massive giveaway. One lucky reader will win:
Staub 4 Quart Round Cocotte
Shun 6-inch Dual Core Utility Knife
Cuttingboard.com Boos Block Walnut 20×15 Cutting Board
Finex 10-inch Cast Iron Pan
Kitchen Aid Artisan Design Series 5-Quart Stand Mixer w/Glass Bowl in Pearl Silver
To enter: Leave a comment on the blog with your favorite winter holiday memory. I want to hear ALL the details! I’ll randomly choose a winner and notify them through email. Open to US residents only. (Sorry international friends, only American companies agreed to this one!) If you’d like some extra entries use the widget below to follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. Contest ends December 21st at 12pm PST. Good luck!
The giveaway is closed! I’ll be announcing the winner in the next week or so after reading through all of the comments. Thank you everyone who entered! There are some beautiful memories here!
Update: Congrats Chelsea, you won! Look for an email from me shortly!
My family always celebrates christmas multiple times with different parts of the family. This would usually involve driving on Christmas day from celebrations in northern Ohio to our home in Columbus. But every time we got home, the presents were already under the tree, as if Santa had laid them out! As I got older I found out my mother enlisted helpers to do this while we were gone, but it was always fun as a kid.
My favorite holiday activity is doing NOTHING! Except sitting in front of a fireplace with a hot mug of coffee or tea and relaxing with the people I love. I am recently engaged and am looking forward to spending holidays for the rest of my life with my fiance. He is so loving and enjoys doing the exact same thing over the holidays. So many fun memories to be made!
Every year, the plan was to eat at 1:00pm. Usually, someone is late and the adults would still be cooking anyway. And my aunt would come with only half of gifts wrapped, so she would recruit my mom and my other aunt to help her bring things in from the car. It was always a quirky Christmas, but great to be with family!
I got to go with my husband and our then two babe’s to surprise his sister and her family in Alaska Christmas day.
My favorite holiday memory was when my brothers and I woke up to a ton of Christmas presents under the tree on Christmas Day. We all ran to the tree in our PJ’s and started ripping our presents up as our parents whipped out the camcorder and camera!
My favorite holiday memory is the Christmas Eve dinner. Every year, after a candle-lit Christmas Eve church service we have dinner at a family friend’s house- a tradition that has been going on for most of my life. They are my favorite dinner party partners because they are as interested in the process of cooking and good, interesting food as my family is and every year we share a wonderful meal that is even better than the year before. One year was apricot and plum stuffed pork tenderloin, one year a table-scape of tapas and a beautiful paella that was practically a work of art, one year a decadent seafood lasagna (my favorite). Every year our hosts keep the entree a surprise- the big reveal is just as fun as opening presents on Christmas morning! Even though the entree is always a surprise, the night is filled with many traditions that we strictly uphold every year. Appetizers are always a warm and gooey baked brie with fig jam and a bowl of fresh cherries (which is always a welcome change in the dead of winter). I always bake a batch of cranberry orange scones as a gift for our hosts (which has become a staple of their Christmas morning breakfast). My traditional role in this feast is the dessert- a buche de noel. Making the dessert is one of my favorite parts of this tradition because I love that magical place where food intersects with art- tiny meringue mushrooms dusted with coco powder, making textured faux-tree bark out of chocolate, adorning the plate with pine boughs- the process is just as fun as the final product. (Unfortunately, I had to remove the espresso powder from my recipe because it kept everyone up all night!)
This is my favorite because the meal is so deeply rooted in family, friends, good food, and tradition (the best things in life!) but there is always something new and different every year to surprise us.
My favorite holiday memory is decorating the Christmas tree and then making my boyfriend hold my hand as we wrap our arms around the tree and sing Oh Christmas Tree (we just repeat the same lyrics over and over) to it while looking up at the star on top. He acts mad that I make him do it every year but I know he secretely enjoys it.
When my husband finally got his green card and flew to NY to move in with me on December 23, 2013!
So excited to share my favorite holiday memory! One of my favorite memories ever was the year my sister and I came out into the living room Christmas morning then walked into the kitchen to see if Santa had eaten the cookies & drank the milk. We noticed that Santa did indeed eat all the cookies! BUT – to our excitement – Santa also left us a note! It said ‘Go into the garage, there is a present out there for you!’ So my sister and I ran to the garage, saw a box, looked inside and saw a puppy! Both my sister and I were so excited. We played with her all day long, shared the story with all our friends and other family members, and enjoyed 16 amazing years with that puppy.
one of my favorite holiday memories is when my family and I had a tour of the REAL A Christmas Story house in Cleveland. We got to see AND touch the real leg lamp. We also met the mean elf actress in person! I’ll never forget it.