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 memory was reading the Night Before Christmas every year on Christmas eve. My brother, sister, and I would gather on the couch in our PJs right before bed and my dad would read to us. My dad gave me a copy of the book as a gift the Christmas that my wife and I were expecting our first child and now on Christmas eve my 2 year old jumps on my lap in here PJs and I carry on the tradition.
The first year my son knew the truth about Santa, but his little sister didn’t. He opened his gifts, turned to me, winked his little eye and said “Thanks SANTA!” He got both that the gifts came from us and that he shouldn’t ruin the magic for others.
My favorite Christmas memory is when our kids were very little and they came into our room Christmas morning all excited about what they had in their stockings. It was a very fun moment.
Growing up, my family’s German tradition was that Santa delivered both our presents and our fully decorated Christmas tree on the 24th. Conveniently, this always happened while we kids were out at the movies with our mom and we’d come home to beautifully decked out Christmas tree filling our living room. In the span of one afternoon my poor dad would haul the Christmas tree he’d already bought out of the shed, make numerous trips to the attic to fetch the 10-15 boxes of Christmas ornaments and decor, and then put it all up and tuck the boxes back in the attic so we’d be none the wiser. Once the myth of Santa was ruined for me (Oops! Sorry, spoiler alert!) it was my turn to join him and my older brother in an afternoon of child labor. The first year helping was a special one, both because I felt like I was in on the big secret and also because I was excited to surprise my mom and younger brother with the fruits of our labor. I also enjoyed having the power to choose exactly where my prized ballerina ornament went on the tree, or how far in the back I could hide that ugly ornament my brother made in 1st grade. The best part was when my little brother came home and couldn’t contain his excitement. There just might be an adorable picture of him doing a little dance in the doorway when he spied the evidence of “Santa’s” visit.
my favorite holiday memory is christmas with the family a few days prior to our wedding.
My childhood always had a bittersweet color to the holidays. Up until my sister and I were 7, our best christmas was opening a present of free handtowels. When my brother came of age to believe in Santa, my sister and I did everything possible to keep him believing. One christmas, my brother wanted a hot wheels razor scooter. My sister and I, who were 14 and 10 years old at the time, saved coins all year, went to the coin machine. Because we were the only people to take care of my brother, we had to take him along. We took a bus 30 minutes to the nearest Toys r Us, hauled it back to our little apartment: all while trying to distract him from our obviously large purchase from Toys R Us. On Christmas morning, he was so excited to know Santa came to our little apartment that obviously did not have a chimney. Whether or not he knew and pretended, or really believed, my sister and I were so grateful to my little brother for letting us do that for him. My sister and I still think about that Christmas with happy tears welling up in our eyes.
My favorite memory is waking up Christmas morning and my parents allowing us to have Christmas cookies for breakfast as we open presents! Double bonus….presents and cookies! :)
Every year since I can remember, my family has hosted a giant Hanukah Party. I’m in my last year of college and the Hanukah party is still something that my friends look forward to as the event that we will all be reunited at. I don’t have a memory of the first party, but among some of my favorite parts of the party is the latke prep. My dad passed away when I was a kid but every year we make his supremely perfect latke recipe. My mom will pick up bulk bags of onions and potatoes and while my twin sister and I are shoving junk into closets, decorating, and vacuuming the house, my mom is popping those onions and potatoes into the food processor. The house fills with oniony tears and good latke vibes. We don’t start frying the latkes until right when people start showing up. My mom has taught me to fry them in sunflower oil and only for a few minutes so that they are perfectly crispy but still light and fluffy on the inside. Last year about eighty people showed up and we made probably over a hundred latkes. Every year the group of Hanukah celebrating friends grows but the feeling is always the same: everyone is smiling. When I was in middle school, one of the parents of my friends starting playing the piano and got a group of people to sing with him. That has become a tradition of the Hanukah party. I’m from Los Angeles so the holiday cheer does not include snow storms but it is always cozy in my house. The smell of fresh latkes and happy singing voices is my favorite things about the holidays.
My favorite winter holiday memory is waking up on Christmas Day at my boyfriend’s house and celebrating Christmas with him and his family for the first time. The love, laughter, and fun will stay with me all my life, and it was the start to our own holiday tradition. Now that we’ve been married for 3 years, each Christmas morning is something I look forward to every year.
Around the holidays each year I get together with college friends. Every year we do it a different friends house and there is a culinary theme. Last year was my turn and the theme was The Feast of the Seven Fishes. I cooked six courses of food from all over the world. Great dishes like Crudite with Tonnato Sauce, Brandade, Thai Calamari Salad, etc. The funnest part was dessert. We were able to get a Fudgie The Whale ice cream cake from Carvel. Definitely a new take on Seven Fishes.