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 when I was younger was when it got so cold that our leaky garden hose spilled enough water on our concrete backyard that it had made a homemade “skating rink” that my sisters and I were able to play on!
My favorite holiday memory when I was younger was when it got so cold that our leaky garden hose spilled enough water overnight onto our concrete backyard, froze over and turned into a homemade ice rink that my sisters and I were able to “skate” on!
Stuffing and carving the turkey with my Dad
I grew up in a staunchly Korean-American family, so our holiday celebrations always feature a hodge podge of Korean and American cultural icons: kalbi bbq ribs and bossam alongside turkey and honey glazed ham for Thanksgiving, red bean porridge and party poppers on New Year’s. A few years ago, my mom decided that our family’s Christmas traditions weren’t “traditiony” enough by American standards, so she created a list of traditions that she’d seen on TV or that she’d heard of other families she knew were doing and presented it to our family. Our family of 4 would methodically go through this to-do list of traditions (including leaving cookies out for Santa/the mailman, opening a single gift each on Christmas Eve, and taking a tour of the neighborhood’s decorations) and, at the end, see which ones we enjoyed the most and officially induct into our personal Christmas canon. In the end, we never ended up adopting any of these into our Christmas routine, but it was the most fun I ever remember having with my family for the winter holidays. What seemed like a chore ended up being more like a scavenger hunt, and “trying on” traditions that I knew were real and dear to someone else gave me the fuzzy feelings.
My favorite holiday memory is the year my boyfriend Simon and I didn’t have any big family plans for Christmas. We woke up late, drank coffee, exchanged gifts. We lounged in pj’s and eventually decided to go out for Thai. We ate an early Christmas dinner with other the other jovial diners in the restaurant and then decided to go for a drive. I love going for destination-less drives, aimlessly cruising along unexplored roads, blaring music, and just getting away. Luckily for me, Simon is always down for an adventure. So, this is exactly what we were doing when the heavens opened up and we found ourselves in a torrential downpour along a winding road through the mountains. Now I love the rain, but driving in it, on a highway, in the fast approaching dark, isn’t the most fun. In fact, it was so tremendous that we had to pull over behind a long line of cars, just to avoid driving off a cliff. We sat, in momentarily stunned silence, marveling at the sheer violence of the weather. The rain sounded like a stampede–a wild throng of animals thundering over the roof of our car. We sat and listened staring out into the grey and eventually broke into laughter. We were stuck, on Christmas, with no cell service, on the side of the road with a line of strangers in cars who I’d like to think were as thrilled as we were. We talked and marveled about the unpredictability of things simply enjoying the chaos. I’m not sure how long it lasted. Eventually it let up and we got back on the road, but I couldn’t tell you where we ended up that night. All I can recall is sitting in that car, laughing, stranded, caught up in the pure magic of the moment. It is pure testament to living in the present and appreciating the company you have which I think is what the holidays are all about.
Who doesn’t love the holidays? Especially when you get to spend it with family (blood-related or not) all while stuffing your face with delicious food! That’s how all my holiday memories start and end – with food. Our house was always THE party house. No matter where we lived, how small the house, everyone always gathered at our house. Probably because my mom is an amazing cook, and EVERYone was welcome. I remember waking up in the wee hours of the morning to start prepping for the feast ahead. Without fail, the menu always included prime rib (we’re up to 18 lbs), turkey, ham, three lasagnas (at least), mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, garlic bread, some kind of veggies, clam chowder, a multitude of pies, cheesecake,…, and the list goes on. :) I used to love watching her prep, then as I got older, I started to help out a little, and now I contribute my own dishes. It sounds like a lot of food (and for most families, it probably is), but every year, my brother, sister, a handful of cousins and I always manage to finish every last bit. It became our tradition to break into a new board game every year and watch movies til the wee hours of the next morning, all while nibbling away at the leftovers until they were all gone. Those were some of my best and happiest holiday memories. Now we’re all grown up and have kids of our own, but hopefully the tradition will be carried on by our little ones also!
My favorite holiday memory is from Thanksgiving, actually. I think I probably prefer it because there’s less pressure- delicious food, great company, and all without the stress of gift giving. A couple of years ago, i was not able to get home for Thanksgiving and had to figure out what to do in the city where I went to grad school. My boyfriend and his sister hadn’t figured out plans either so we decided to make the meal from scratch together. It was all vegan except for a turkey breast, and we even made the bread for the stuffing from scratch! The day started with some a couple of mimosas and then we started cooking. The house smelled great and we had a great time. The funniest part was at the end of the day, after probably 6 or 8 hours of cooking, we ate all the food on our plates in about 15 minutes. It didn’t matter though, it was all so delicious!
A memory I cherish is my first Christmas with my husband, Cory. We had just started dating 5 moths prier, but knew things were pretty serious between the two of us. We were very young, and didn’t have much, but I remember that Christmas being filled with more kindness, generosity and love than I had ever experienced before.
My favorite holiday memory was when I was 10 years old. My Granddaddy in the Tennessee mountains had a litter of puppies in his dog kennel. They were bred to be squirrel-hunting dogs. For Christmas, he proposed to give me the runt of the litter, a small, black and tan puppy. She was so tiny and precious. You could tell she was a smart dog and even though she was the littlest she was the leader of the pack.
Anyways, my family already had a dog and my parents were wary of adding another to the household, particularly a squirrel dog. So my parents told me that I wasn’t allowed to have the puppy. Guess I was quite a rebel, because I snuck the puppy into the car when it was time to leave my Grandaddy’s house. It wasn’t until we finished the two hour drive home that my parents realized what I had done. Initially, they were going to have me return the puppy when we next visited my grandparents, but after a few weeks, she warmed their hearts and I was allowed to keep her. Her name was Cassie. She was the best puppy a girl could have!
My favorite holiday memories would have to be helping my mom make Christmas goodies to send out to friends and family and helping with decorating the Christmas tree. :)