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!
Favorite holiday memory is the last time my whole family was together including my grandparents. It’s so festive with a full house, a tree, and good food and drink. I’m Vietnamese so any gathering always included homemade eggrolls courtesy of my grandmother who I’d occasionally shadow in the kitchen.
My favorite holiday memory is when our neighbors exchange holiday baked goods. We’ve been doing it for around 15 years since I was a kid and love trying new recipes for the holidays. Food blogs are my biggest inspiration for new recipes!
My favorite holiday memory is from two years ago. I had been studying abroad and hadn’t seen my family for a whole year(!), but when I came home, it was only my mom and me in The house. Before she came to pick me up from the airport, my mom had hung up this reusable advent calendar that I’ve had since I was little, and she had filled it with really nice chocolates, and so because it was three days before Christmas, I got to eat 22 days’ worth of chocolate. And then we put on a Christmas music playlist on reaaally low (because we both hate background music), poured ourselves some drinks and baked cookies all afternoon, just the two of us. And then it started to snow. Most magical pre-Christmas afternoon ever.
My family never really celebrated, but we did “decorate” my sister one year. Green is her favorite color and she wore head-to-toe green (turtleneck, no less) and we stuck bows on her. We still talk about the time she was our Christmas tree.
My favorite winter memory is Christmas at my grandma’s with all my cousins. A big family dinner followed by us kids opening gifts. Then the grown-ups would gather around the table and play a board game. I love watching my mom with her brothers. It was a very special time.
When I was young, holiday memories were all about family. For the first time in my life, I will be celebrating the holiday season with my new family as my fiancee and I head to his parents’ home. Of course, my favorite memories come from childhood. Every year my sister and I would play a christmas song CD in the living room. Together in our candy-cane onesies we’d dance to Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree until our brother would run in interrupting with his own rendition of some Rage Against the Machine song. My mom would watch us all from the couch – I think she really loved that time of year. She had all of her kids together in one house (my brother was almost always away at boarding school). The silliness of this tradition with the idea that my mom was really happy makes it an unforgettable memory.
My three sisters and I would wake very early on Christmas morning and together run to our parents’ room to wake them. Mom and Dad would have us line up by age from youngest to oldest at the top of the stairs, while Dad went downstairs and turned the lights on the tree before beckoning us. The sight of the beautiful tree and many presents was always met by excited oohs and ahhs from us, which I know made our Mom and Dad very happy, especially since they had waited to decorate the tree until we fell asleep on Christmas Eve.
My favorite memory is going to visit family in Australia. They had a big party and Christmas lunch outdoors, it was very festive and very different than my traditional family Christmases. It was also my first warm weather holiday. I love my usual cold weather small family holidays but this was something special.
Favorite holiday memory? We celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas in my house – so really the holidays last all December. My favorite memory though has to be last year’s cookie exchange. My friends and I are “foodies” so it’s always sort of a ridiculous contest but also SO delicious! From paleo cookies to momofuku spin-offs, there is something for everyone.
My favorite memory is probably one of my last Christmas’s believing in Santa. I had wanted a bike for a while and this year I went all out and wrote Santa a letter and everything. Come Christmas morning there was a bike sitting under the tree. I later figured out it was my parents, but that feeling of thinking Santa read my letter was amazing.