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 entire family including aunts, uncles and cousins would meet in NYC to celebrate the holidays with my great aunt and grandparents. Ever the gracious hostess, my great aunt would provide full spreads of food featuring her traditional German food like potato salad and Apfelkuchen. It was marvelous to get to play with my left coast relatives whom I would never see otherwise, and of course enjoy all that New York has to offer.
My favorite memory is decorating my tree, it’s no christmas till the tree is decorated
We grew up in the midwest and my favorite memories during the holiday season revolve around sledding with our cousins who would come to visit. One time we even got our adventurous cat to come on the sled! Unfortunately, the hill behind our house has now overgrown with more substantial greenery (not easily flattened!), but i have so many memories of trying to wait until the last moment to jump off the sled to avoid hitting a tree or running into the frozen creek. That, along with building snow tunnels and jumping off the deck into the snow pile- soo much fun and good family time. Plus, my mom would then make real hot chocolate for when we came in to warm up! so good!
My favorite holiday memories are long drives every winter of my childhood to the SF Bay, no snow but a big house full of extended family, Norwegian smorgasbord dinners, and walks through Golden Gate park. Presents were opened Christmas Eve then the whole family walked down to the Lutheran church for midnight carols and accidentally falling asleep in the service.
My favorite Winter Holiday Memory was waking up as a 9 year old on Christmas morning to the smell of cinnamon rolls in the oven and then finding out that Santa had left my brothers and I a Super Nintendo Entertainment System. There isn’t much that can beat out my normal excitement for homemade cinnamon rolls, but at the time, that gaming system did it. I’ve had many happy and memorable life events since then, but it is difficult to be more excited than a 9 year old on Christmas morning.
Making cookies is always my favorite
Receiving a vanity when I was a little girl, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen
Growing up, my family moved around a lot. We hardly ever had Christmas at our own home, but it was ok because we were always with family. As I got older, we started cherishing the little moments more often because as we got older, some family stopped coming for one reason or another. 7 years ago my now-husband and I decided to plan our wedding around Christmas because we loved the season so much. My favorite Christmas memory is the one from right before I got married. Everyone was at my parents house because they were also going to stay for my wedding 3 days later. Everyone made Christmas cookies together and watched movies and throughly enjoyed each other’s company more than anything else. Now 7 years later, my husband and I have 2 kids and we live closer to even more family and have been able to recreate many of the same moments we enjoyed before my weddings, but also including my 2 kids. My new favorite memory is being about to have my kids make Christmas cookies with hot great-grandparents and watching my grandma, who has had dementia for 5ish years, light up when she is around her great-grandchildren and watching my grandpa react to seeing his love of 65 years be able to be happy again. ❤️ Christmas truly is a magical time.
My favorite holiday memory is waking up early before anyone else, and catching a peek of the presents under the tree. Now in my adulthood, I wake up to the smell of delicious coffee. Nothing else matters until that first cup!
We don’t celebrate Christmas but for every December Holiday vacation growing up I got to go visit my dad in Hawaii for two weeks. Those days of brilliant sun, eating snow cones, and spending every second at the beach are such treasures. Especially coming from the harsh New England winters it was something I always looked forward to.