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!
I have a multitude of holiday memories, especially associated with food. Certain foods always bring me back to the holidays, as I’m sure they do with everyone. We go to my aunt Marci’s house every Christmas Eve, and while I gobbled down creamed corn with bacon (I’ve been begging Aunt Marci for this recipe for years, but to no avail!) and steak with homemade chimichurri sauce, we saw car lights off in the distance. They didn’t move closer to the driveway, so out my Uncle Jim went to check on potential visitors caught in the massive snowstorm. Turns out, in an effort to deliver last-minute packages, the mailman had braved the dirt road in the blizzard, and gotten stuck. My uncle, my dad, and the other strong males went out to help push his truck out of the snow. We all felt so sad for the poor mailman who had to work on a festive occasion. So he was invited into the warm house, given a place at our table, and enjoyed the holiday with us until the snow died down. A great, warm, holiday memory for me.
My favorite memory of Christmas was when I was around 8 or 9 and I was really into how Santa could get to all those houses in one night. Especially ours since we didn’t have a fireplace, but an oil burning furnace with a door. So I decided I was going to stay up and catch him coming into our home. My room was right next to the living room and I sat peeking around the door waiting for Santa to come through the furnace door. But, alas he was taking too long and I fell asleep. The presents were magically under the tree as usual and I never did see him come through our furnace.
There isn’t much better than piling into my grandparents’ basement to gather around the tabletop tree and open presents. She usually reads the Christmas story, and we each open our presents. It’s chaos, with everyone talking and laughing and the kids frantically opening every gift in sight (whether or not it’s theirs)—and usually one kid crying at all times—but that sound, and the stuffed-in-a-basement feeling are my favorites of the holiday.
My Favorite holiday memory is of my son in Disneyland for Christmas. It will always warm my heart when I remember him yelling “Party, party!” as we walked throughout the park.
My favorite winter memory is planning to catch santa with all my cousins. On Christmas Eve we all had different “posts”; someone looking under the tree, one person at the chimney, someone at the front door, and lookouts in the windows to spot reindeer. Then all of a sudden we heard bells on the roof and we all ran to the window. Magically when we went back there was a huge pile of presents under the tree, we were amazed. Santa had even managed to down the milk and cookies on the way up the chimney. This has to be my favorite holiday memory.
One Christmas I tried a new pecan pie recipe and took it to my parents house for family dinner. The pie was fabulous. Two days later, my sister called. Her husband didn’t get a piece of the pie because it was gone when he hit the dessert table. Bummer. The next year, I was “ordered” to bring three pies.
My favorite memory of the holidays is from when I was much younger – around 5 or 6. Back then my parents still had a Christmas tree (we threw it out when I was 14 because the base broke, and never replaced it), and though my dad is a perfectionist who usually doesn’t let other people get involved in his projects, he always asked my brother and I to help decorate the tree. My parents had boxes and boxes of ornaments and lights and garlands and tinsel, and we would spend hours on the Saturday after Thanksgiving putting these all on the tree. Half of the ornaments were school projects my brother and I had created, and they hung off the tree in all their ugly, childish glory. My family doesn’t really celebrate Christmas – no gifts, no dinner – but putting up the tree is something I always remember as a nice, fun, family activity.
Being a first generation Indian-American and my parents having only recently come from India and not having experienced a real Christmas, there was always confusion as to how to celebrate the Holidays. It was usually just a gift and some of my mom’s delicious Indian food. We moved to New Jersey when I was 5 and had great snowfall on Christmas. That year, my dad decided to truly embrace the Holiday, get a real tree, and play Christmas music throughout Christmas Eve and Day. What I wasn’t expecting was the “squirming” present under the tree when I woke up Christmas morning. Buddy, my new Golden Retriever companion had been delivered by Santa to help me spend the Holidays. Suffice it to say there were too soggy best friends prancing through the snow that year.
My favorite holiday memory is finally eating our Christmas lasagna – it was painful since we always made it the day before and the waiting was nearly impossible!
My favorite holiday memory is making gingerbread houses with my kids. It was a spontaneous purchase of some kits at the store and lots of extra candy, but it turned into one of my best memories. They’re lots bigger now, but they still love that whenever we do it!