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!
This isn’t your typical holiday warm and fuzzy memory, but every year we still tell this story because looking back, it always makes us laugh …
My little brother is 10 years younger than me. When he was still in his crib days, I think it was his 2nd Christmas, I was waiting for him to wake up to open gifts. When he woke up, I ran upstairs to get him out of his crib. He was very happy and bubbly and I put him over my shoulders and started to walk downstairs with him in my arms. As I made the first step, he spit up all over my hair.
all. over. my. hair. BARF. PUKE.
Let me back up and tell you that my hair, as an 11 year old, was oh so long, down to my jean pockets in fact. I couldn’t believe what just happened and I held him out in front of me as if, “rreaally?” I yelled for my mom to help me and I was so mad because I had to shower and wait even longer to open gifts. But I couldn’t stay mad at him long, his gummy smile had a way of erasing anything bad that was happening.
Though this isn’t really a family tradition per se, but more of a family memory. 12 years later, we tell this story every Christmas Day.
I don’t know that I have a favorite winter holiday memory. However, as an adult there’s nothing greater than making new memories with my children and Christmas morning is always so much more fun because of their joy.
I’m thankful that my favorite winter holiday memories continue on each year, I know I’m lucky to have my whole family together still. My mom makes a simple cheese rice recipe (sort of like mac-n-cheese but with rice) and there is nothing gourmet about it but it’s delicious and it means everything. She only makes it at Christmas, so it’s very special and we make a big deal about it every year. I love making a fuss about it year after year!
My favorite winter holiday memory is making over two dozen cinnamon rolls for my family and seeing their eyes go wide when I handed them out as gifts! Everyone loved them and I was so happy to have so many leftover to eat all by myself. The best part of the holidays is being able to bake so many delicious things and share them with others.
Favorite winter holiday memory would be last year, when I thought we weren’t going to have any — the usual big family gathering fell through, so instead we just met up with one of the families we were closer to (my uncle’s) and marathoned LOTR, the extended versions! For someone who’d never watched LOTR before (I know, sue me) it was definitely memorable. Ah, Legolas <3
Favorite winter holiday memory is definately baking Xmas cookies with my mom.
One of my favorite Christmas Memories was one year my cousin brought a friend to to my nana’s house for Christmas Eve. My family is Hispanic so Christmas Eve means tamales! Well when it was time to eat my cousin wandered away from her friend for a minute and my nana asked him ( my cousins friend) how he liked his tamale ( his first ever). He smiled sweetly at her and said ” They are really good !” While chewing vigorously. My nana then noticed he was eating the corn husk along with the tamale… needless to say he enjoyed them even more when shown the proper technique. I love this memory because it gave everyone a Gooday chuckle, my cousins friend was a good sport and we gave someone the gift of a homemade Christmas tamale! Which is a mighty fine gift :)
Favorite holiday memory: Having huge wrapping paper fights with my sister and cousins after we opened all our presents!
After my brother & I had gone to bed on Christmas eve and should have been sound asleep, we could hear my parents scrambling to wrap all of our gifts from “Santa”. We never let on that we heard Santa’s helpers wrapping our presents.
I haven’t celebrated many Christmases as a child because of living in an atheist communist country, but my first year in the US was also the first time I cried when receiving a gift. It was a silly gift – a titanic movie soundtrack. But the tears came out of nowhere and it was about the overwhelming feeling of joy when you get presents, so many of them for the first time in your life.