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!
Favorite memory was my son’s 1st Xmas….I’ll never forget it
The most memorable holiday stuff hasn’t happened yet, but should happen this year. I’m still single and I only have one sibling. She’s getting married in about 2 weeks and this will be the first year there’s a fiancee involved in Christmas. Sure, he’s not my fiancee, but it’s still going to be a fun time for the whole family. And probably one of the last Christmases before I get to start making niece or nephew Christmas memories. :D
My favorite winter memory was when my mom and her boyfriend and I drove to Santas Village, but I got super car sick on the way! We never made it to Santa’s village, but we played in the snow and had a great time! My mom died less than a year later, but I always look back on this little memory with fondness.
My favorite winter memory is:
Around 9 or 10 years old, I’d bundle up in an oversized snowsuit that my grandparents from Arizona bought both my brother and I for Christmas. They clearly thought Indiana was Antarctica, because this thing allowed me to waddle around in the freezing cold all day long. My older brother was either a pansy or cold intolerant, so I was always outside in the snow alone doing various things. I liked pawing out snow drifts with my mittens and making tunnels I could crawl through. When they collapsed, I’d make one massive snowman and then a lot of mini snowmen around him. I was an avid Calvin & Hobbes reader and picked the idea off of the comic book. It took hours and hours and when I was done, I’d come in, have my mom extract me from my snowsuit, and make a huge cup of hot chocolate. I remember shoving as many of them in the mug as I could get. I’ve never had homemade marshmallows, but I’d love to make them for my niece who is the same age I was in this story. I see a lot of her in me and she shares my undying love for marshmallows.
We dont get much snow here, but last year we did and had about 8 inchs, what fun!
Opening a rc racing car set that was advance for the time and racing together with my brothers… when new technology was simple and fun. Thanks for the opportunity.
My favorite holiday memory is going to my grandparents house for breakfast on Christmas morning before opening presents!
My favorite holiday was making holiday cookies with my sisters. I stole the piping bag from my sister and she threw a whole bowl of icing at my head. A full on food fight ensued. By the end, the entire kitchen was covered in icing and batter and not one cookie was able to be eaten.
My favorite childhood holiday memory was my Aunt Rae’s Christmas cookies. She baked so many different kinds, each more beautiful than any I had ever seen, which she carefully arranged on a Christmas platter. Since my Mom was not a big baker, these cookies were my first Christmas cookie experience. I hadn’t realized that people baked so many wonderful cookies at Christmas time and Christmas cookie baking grew to be a tradition with my sisters and me. Now our children have caught the baking bug and love to try their hand at baking new recipes.
Sneeking downstairs with my three sisters as a school-age child to check out what Santa brought… and putting the gifts into recipient “piles.” Then we’d go back upstairs to wake our parents and ask when we could start opening gifts. “Go make some coffee” they said. So, we did. That being completed, we went back to them and asked if we could open the gifts. Of course, my parents knew they had us right where they wanted us, so they’d give us another task to complete. Finally, after several tasks (all of which I can’t even remember anymore) we settled down to open gifts!