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!
Mine would have to be eating my mother’s famous holiday strata before opening presents at my grandparents’ house on Christmas morning. My sister and I almost couldn’t wait to start tearing into our gifts, but that once-a-year treat was so good it was enough to keep us at the table!
my favorite holiday memory has to be going to pick out our family Christmas tree with my father, it’s a memory of a tradition we did every year but I always loved that it was just me and him, especially since I come from a family with 3 brothers
Favorite holiday memory – after we open gifts, and go for a dogwalk (with my 2 basset hounds and my parent’s lab) we make an epic eggs benedict. Everyone helps out so everything comes out ready – I do the hollandaise, my dad poaches the eggs, my mom and sister heat up the ham and toast the english muffins. It’s so wonderful. The dogs may or may not get to lick a plate or two once we’re finished….love your blog! Happy Holidays!!!!
My favorite holiday memory was when my family is all together. WE would open presents, bake cookies, and watch movies together!
Growing up, Christmas was crazy busy for our family. So in order to get some special family time in, my mom let us all play hooky from school and go Christmas shopping. We still carry on this tradition today and it is one of my all time favorites. And tomorrow is actually the day we get to do this!!!
We didn’t have alot growing up , my mom was a single parent , still new to this country and she worked alot sometimes 2 jobs to provide for me and my brother and she was paying for us to go to private school , I don’t know how she did it . We didn’t expect much for Christmas especially since me and my brother searched the entire house the month of December for any gifts she may have been hiding , we checked every where and nothing. So fast forward to Christmas morning our Christmas tree was surrounded by soo many gifts, she bought us bikes! I still Rembert mine to this day , it was a pink bmx bike and my brothers was red .. we were soooo happy , I don’t really remember what else was under the tree except for this chalk board with a box of colored chalks to go with it .. I loved that board . My brother and I swore it was a Christmas miracle lol.. the real miracle is my mom , I still don’t know how she pulled it off ..
every winter my family used to ship off to bonaire for scuba diving and relaxing fam time. one year i must have been 12, and we managed to get our hands on a huge box of fireworks. the house we stayed in had a big patio on the water so we thought we could set them all off back there. unfortunately it was a super windy night and all of us were terrified to light the fireworks because it meant sitting near the fuse and making sure it stayed lit until it went off. the only one brave enough was my grandfather! i’ll never shake the memory of him shuffling back and forth on the patio tiles with a big prayer candle (our best bet for lighting the fireworks) and all of us screaming at him to run away before the explosions.
My favorite holiday memory is my family’s “Jewish” Christmas Eve. We go to PF Chang’s for Chinese food and then a movie fueled with tons of popcorn. It’s the silly way we celebrate the holidays, but it works for us and keeps us all connected!
I remember the first time I baked sugar cookies with my family. I have the scent of the cookie dough on my mind whenever this time of year comes around. Rolling out the dough on the kitchen table and making the difficult decisions about the right cookie cutters to use (Rudolph or Santa?), then eating the scraps when my mom wasn’t looking even though she cautioned me about getting salmonella. Good Times!
I remember being about 4 and making snow angels in the yard with my brother in the winter. Then coming in to have my mother take my snow boots off and sitting by the fireplace to thaw out!