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 favorite holiday memories are of my family gathered together at my grandmother’s house. Our cousins lived in Georgia but they would travel home to celebrate with us. My Grandmother always had pigs in a blanket for her fancy Christmas Eve Party and at the time I thought it was the most glamorous party food. Her friends would come over dressed up in sequins and holiday baubles, drinking old fashioned cocktails and smoking while the kids hid under the pool table with as many pigs in a blanket as we could sneak away with. To this day I serve those silly pigs in a blanket every year at our Christmas party and think of her.
Every year on Christmas, my Dad and I volunteer at a church to serve a Christmas dinner to low-income families in the county. It’s a great way to spend time together, give pack, and show off my snow-driving skills as we deliver meals to folks who are home-bound. My favorite holiday memory is probably doing these home visits with my Dad when I was 10, and he let me come with him for the first time. I’m excited to go again this year (and the next)!
My favorite holiday memory was on Christmas when I was much younger. I really wanted a doll house and opened all of my presents and did not receive one. I remember silently being kind of bummed about it and about ten minutes after present opening was over, my grandmother and mom came out from a back room holding a large doll house and singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. It was a huge surprise and made for a very magical Christmas moment!
My favorite holiday memory is when my mom buys a bunch of dungeness crab for Xmas Eve, and the whole family gets to sit at the table for hours cracking crab all evening. No other sides or food; just crab. I always manage to sneak in a leg or two before actual dinner time. We set up the dinner table in the living room by the fake Xmas tree that’s been decorated with the same ornaments and lights from the last 20 years. My family and I aren’t close so it’s nice when we all get to sit around with each other. Happy Holidays!
My family isn’t very religious. Growing up my sisters and I all went to catholic school but my sister Lauren is the only one who really held on to that faith. Around Christmas time, however, at midnight mass, I shared this faith with her, and it is one of my many cherished memories from the Christmas holidays. I come from an Italian/polish upbringing so Christmas Eve dinner is very special. We cook a variety of different dishes all focused on 12 different types of seafood. The dishes varied every holiday but my mom always made stuffed calamari because my Dad loved it. After the meal we all digested on the couch
together, and almost always, I fell asleep. However, at 11:30 my sister Lauren would wake me to attend the midnight mass in our town. Just the two of us would bundle up in our warmest jackets and festive outfits and head out into the cold. No cars were on the streets, and everything was still except for the blinking holiday lights draping the houses. If you’ve never attended a midnight mass on the eve of Christmas it is something truly magical. It is so touching how everyone from the community comes together to celebrate the very moment the calendar jumps to the 25. The town may be quiet but the church is gushing with cheer and love. After the mass my sister and I would drive to a neighboring town and admire the elaborately decorated houses. Some even displaying live animal nativity scenes. This is my favorite memory. merry Christmas
Because I’m Korean, my family had never had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner until last year. But last year, we decided to try to have a full-on American Thanksgiving dinner, and it was so much fun! The chaos of preparing the turkey and all the sides fully immersed me in the holiday vibes, and my family had a super satisfying, fun Thanksgiving dinner!
Thanks so much for hosting the giveaway!
My favorite holiday memory is going on an annual ski trip with a HUGE group of friends and family. It was chaotic, loud, and tiring, but also a great time! We kids would tire ourselves out on the slopes, and then the parents would always welcome us into the lodge with hot cocoa and yummy snacks!
I think one of my favorite things is establishing new traditions with my husband. This is our third married Christmas, and we took care the first time (right after our wedding) to establish that we were going to STAY HOME and that was that. So after the crazy of the Halloween-through-December rush, we sleep in, eat bacon and drink coffee, and open presents as slowly as we’d like. It’s the best.
When my sisters and i were very young, my mom would do a themed tree each year. One year she decided the theme was candy. She found lights that looked like starlight mints, ornaments that looked like every candy and dessert you could imagine. A lot of glitter. And candy canes in every flavor. It was the most spectacular tree ive ever seen.
my favorite holiday memory is the year I started cooking for everyone. I am an only child, so when I say everyone I really mean my two parents. we moved away from our extended family when I started going to college. being away from family is difficult around the holidays, especially as an only child. I didn’t know how to cope except to spend hours working with what I love: food. my parents do not appreciate food and cooking as much as I do. they would rather order something than cook. that doesn’t scream holidays to me, so I decided to make it fun and take it upon myself to create the spread of dishes. I love it. I love menu planning and creating food for them to enjoy. to me, this small action helps make the holidays more enjoyable.