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 husband proposed to me on Christmas day six years ago. He told me he had one more present then popped the question. That was my most memorable holiday memory to date. Now that we have two kids, I am sure there are more to come
My favorite memory is being a tiny kid, at church for the annual children”s program. We always had lines tonsay and I was always frozen in fear, but performed because we always got that mystery brown bag after…it was filled with oranges and gums and candy and when you are five that is such a bounty! My other favorite memory is of my last Christmas with my parents,
hadnling the onraments we had collected over the years, eating the same meal we cooked for more than 50 years
As Chrstnas memories go it’s a small one but one that hasn’t faded over time as so many memories do. Each year our mother would decorate the Christmas tree with the help of my brother and I.
On Saturday the two of us would follow dad as he towed our sled across the field behind our house and into the woods.
There was a dirt road left over from the years the property had been a working farm but was now only used when my dad took the car and trailer back there to dump brush up in an old overgrown pasture that now was home to hedge hogs and rabbits. We followed this road and across the bridge over the brook – down the hill to the brook and then up again to the pasture. We’d cross the pasture and go in tot woods where we would help scout for nice tree. It couldn’t be too tall – our house was built in 1754 and the ceilings were about seven feet high! (Dads friend who was 6’5″ had to duck to go through our doorways!)
When we found a tree dad would cut it down and we’d haul it back on the sled. The two of us would be cold by then and more than ready for this part of the process to be done so we could get warm and have cocoa while
Dad wrestled the tree into the house and got it into the stand (not without some cursing under his breath and my mother fussing as she held the tree up for him!)
Then the tree has to rest and get warm in the house so the beaches would relax and fall nicely, my mother would turn it a lot until she had the best side facing out of the corner and dad would wire the top to a hook in the window casing – we had cats and we had lost ornaments in the past when one of them decided he wanted to sleep up on a branch and tipped the tree right over!
Only after all these steps were complete could the lights be out on the tree. This was my mother’s job no one else did the lights – our part was to test the strings and replace bulbs. No led lights, no miniature bulbs, these were the now old-fashioned bulbs, large and breakable, but they made such beautiful light and I remember them with some nostalgia!
Now finally my brother and I could help with hanging the ornaments. They were a varied lot. Glass ones and ones we had made in school and the stars we got each year at church. Each year a different design, handed out after the Christmas pageant to all the children. I don’t know where they went all these years later but I wish I had them still!
When every thing was on the tree the final step was the placing of the angel in the top of the tree. It was the first ornament my parents had bought for their first tree as a man and wife and my brother and I would compete to be able to be lifted up to place it in the spot of honor at the very top of our tree.
I still have that angel – yellowed now from age and it’s dress and wings of delicate fabric showing its years but my sons used I fight to be able to place it on our tree after my mother had left us, and one of these years soon my grandson or granddaughter will do the same when they help me decorate my tree.
That tiny angel has seen a lot and been held by many grubby hands but it’s the prettiest angel I’ve ever seen.
My favorite memory is from last year Christmas dinner because it was the last one with my nonna, who unfortunately passed away a few months later. We did not do anything special, it was just a big lunch with everybody in my family. Due to travels, work schedule, health issues and other stuff we hadn’t been able to throw a family party in years, and in retrospective it was a perfect occasion to celebrate life and the love for each other one last time because my nonna passed away. We decided to spend Christmas all together every year (if possible) to honor our memory of her.
One of my favorites is similar to yours.
I woke up on Christmas morning, rather hungry, apparently, and decided that the bowl of Hershey Kisses on the side table in the living room would be the best breakfast. So, I sat underneath the table and ate all of them. All 40 of them. I also thought I was rather sneaky, so I thought putting the wrappers into the trash would be the best thing to hide my sin. I guess 40 missing Kisses doesn’t go unnoticed, though. Especially when you have a tummy ache for the rest of the day. My parents thought that was punishment enough!
Latkes! Latke! Latkes!
Fav Memory – Drinking cocoa in the snow
Wow. This is the holiday giveaway to end all holiday giveaways!
My favorite holiday memory is the first time I experienced a real snowstorm. My cousins and my family all drove for hours up to Vermont and everything was so white and beautiful! The pine trees looked like they were encased in glass and everything was sparkling in the sun. The next morning, it had snowed a couple feet and we spent an hour just rolling around in it. I remember just being unable to comprehend that all this white stuff had appeared overnight, that snow could be so deep that it was impossible to find the ground underneath. To this day, I am still in awe of snow, of its ability to completely alter a landscape overnight.
My favorite holiday memory is going to my grandma’s for Christmas. She always had the front room table filled with every kind of sweet and every room of the house was decorated to the nines. It always reminded me of what i though Santa’s house looked like!
Christmas morning stockings! There are 22 people that sleep in my house and get up at the crack of dawn. Each family member (no matter age )is greeting with their own knitted stocking full of special little gifts.