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 will always remember going to my great grandmother’s house on Christmas eve for ham and presents. She has been dead for about 14 years now but I will always remember her around this time of year
My favorite Christmas memory is from my childhood. On Christmas Eve we would always spend the night at my grandparents house for a Christmas party. We would play with our cousins and then go home later that night. My brother and I would go house and sleep in his room that night because we were making our “Christmas Plans.” His room had a balcony down to where the tree was and we were going to stay up all night so we could catch Santa leaving presents. BUT if we happened to fall asleep… Whoever woke up first had to wake the other person up. Then we would go get our stockings and sort all the presents. When my parents were woke up a bit later we would rip into those presents.
My favorite holiday memory has to be experiencing the snow for the first time after moving to the east coast for college. My friends and I ran around making snow angels and climbing hills of snow piled up around campus, and ended the day with Secret Santa, laughing at some of the gag gifts that were exchanged.
Once all the cousins got older, we decided to have themed Christmas Eve parties where everyone dresses in costume, we eat themed foods, and we play themed games. We’ve had “I’ll Be Gnome For Christmas” and “My Big, Fat, Ancient Greek Christmas,” to name 2 of my favorites. It’s something weird that I look forward to every year!
my fav holiday memory is making lefse with my family. it’s the only real yearly tradition we have – and it involves cooking (the best part!) lefse is like a thin tortilla, but made from potatoes and flour instead of corn. it’s a norwegian food, which holds special meaning to us because my grandmother is norwegian. it’s served with a variety of foods (my fav being just simple butter and sugar) – just slather some on and roll it up! the lefse griddle we use was purchased by my parents on their honeymoon and (hopefully!) it will get passed down to me some day. making lefse is at least a half day long affair and we always switch roles (someone rolls and someone cooks) and compete for who is rolling the best pieces. in recent years we have started to invite friends and significant others over for the lefse making day – our friends ask to be invited! christmas morning just wouldn’t feel like christmas without a piece of lefse!
My favorite memory was my niece’s first Christmas 2 years ago. She looked adorable I her red dress and loved all of the lights!
The most memorable holiday memory ever has to be the year my mother broke her finger trying to yank the sock of turkey bits out of the turkey, because she permanently damaged her hand and reminds us about it every year. Oh, wait…
When I was a senior in high school, we hosted a foreign exchange student for the entire year. Ramiro is Argentinian, from Buenos Aires, and while he’d certainly seen a lot of holiday customs Americans have, he had never participated. From picking out and decorating a christmas tree to making gingerbread men and playing in 4 feet of snow, he had the child-like joy that I so fondly remember from growing up. He reminded me to be so grateful for the traditions and family I have, and I think of him every year we go cut down our tree.
One of my favorite Christmas memories involves my Dad forcing my brothers and I to stack several cord of firewood before presents could be opened. He would have the wood delivered in the weeks preceding Christmas day, dumped in our driveway. On Christmas morning we would don our cold weather gear, gloves, and fill wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow with wood, then dump it down a chute into the basement. After it was all transported to the basement, we had to stack it neatly, all of which took several hours. Although we hated it at the time, these times persist as a unique tradition for our family, time of character building and time together.
Christmas Eve with my extended family. It’s the day we would open presents and all my cousins would play together with our new toys!