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 memories are spending time at our house in Mexico for the holidays. There are a lot of fun things going this time of year.
My favorite Christmas holiday…this one wasn’t actually too long ago, but growing up my siblings and I were all expected to play band instruments. We all played through high school but gradually lost interest. But a few years ago my parents’ church decided to put on a holiday concert, and invited the congregation to join in with their instruments. Naturally, my mother signed all three of us up without asking any of us. At first we weren’t real happy, but it ended up being hilarious, pulling out the band instruments after 10+ years, trying to remember the notes and laughing hysterically when we played the wrong ones. Great family bonding :)
Going ice fishing with my cousins at my grandparents lake house and cooking kippers snacks on the propane heater to eat with crackers. My grandpa and aunt were still alive and cracking jokes about drinking penis-colossus cocktails. (pina coladas) and previewing supper by scratching her butt and telling everyone the lasagna was made from scratch.
My favorite holiday memory happened last year, singing “Jingle Bells” with my grandpa. He was deeply afflicted by Alzheimer’s at this point, but music was able to unlock something within him–he remembered tunes and lyrics perfectly! A memory I’ll always cherish.
The holiday memory my brother and I still love to talk about is from 1985 when he was 8 and I was just about to turn 7. My Mom had planned a shopping trip where we could help pick out some gifts, and we had plans to start the day with a breakfast out. My brother and I had decided after much intense discussion, that this breakfast was the best time to drop the big discovery we had made on my mom. After ordering our short stacks with whipped cream and strawberries- we took a deep breath and prepared my mother for the news to end all news. “We know there is no Santa” we told her, afraid for our little souls. I remember her trying to take the situation as seriously as we were, but she could not help but hide the smile she had that day at our horror to reveal the truth to her.
Snowball fights!
I remember watching the snow come down and being so excited when I was little. Because I live in an area that gets cold (but not cold enough), the snow doesn’t fall often, and when it does, everyone gets excited for the upcoming day of playing in the snow. My brother and I built an igloo in the driveway (much to the dismay of our parents who made us move it upon completion) as well as a yard full of snow sculpted dinosaurs. Afterwards, my dad would come out and try to convince us to drink hot chocolate, but all we wanted was to take the fresh snow and put condensed milk on it, just like you would for shaved ice in Taiwan. Eventually, we got too cold and had to go back inside, but it was always worth it!
My favorite Christmas memory is more of a tradition from my childhood. Every Christmas, Santa would leave us a gift and fill our stockings (pretty standard, yeah) but in OUR house, gifts could NOT be opened until everyone was awake and coffee-ed. BUT, we were absolutely allowed to open our stockings before anyone was up! So, every year, Santa would give my sister and I a movie in our stockings… that way, when we woke up at the buttcrack of dawn to open our stockings– the movie would buy my parents a precious 90 more minutes of sleep while we watched our movie :) Smart… smart that Santa ;P
I think my favorite holiday memory is when I got a pink mountain bike. Was probably around 9/10 years of age? Somehow my parents directed me into the dining room where it was located (not under the tree or anything). I just remember *screaming* and being thrilled. I took it for a spin on that cold, winter morning. :-)
We didn’t really celebrate christmas grandly, but my birthday is a few days after it and I always had my sleepover parties with a bunch of my homegirls! Those were the days!! Now, I feel like I need an adult sleepover with snacks!