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!
We once rented a cabin in Montana with my entire family and cooked and drank wine while it snowed.
My favorite holiday memory comes from when I was a little kid. Like many other children, I would leave some cookies and milk out for Santa along with some carrots for the reindeer. My parents would always drink most of the milk, and take a few bites of the cookies and carrots; so I REALLY believed that Santa and his reindeer were at my house and ate the snacks I had left out!! One Christmas in particular, there was a little empty green glass bottle tossed aside on the counter near the left over snacks. I had never seen a bottle like this, it was tiny, cute, and had some funny writing on it that I couldn’t understand. There was also a picture of a reindeer on the bottle! I asked my parents what this was, and they responded, “Oh that’s the drink Santa gives his reindeer when they get tired, to keep them flying through the night.” OH DUH, I thought, of course they need something to keep them going. We kept the little empty bottle on our windowsill for years. It wasn’t until I was well into my teenage years that I realized it was a miniature bottle of Jagermeister. :)
Favorite holiday memory is going to our annual ihop breakfast with all of our family and always look fwd to that every year
Baking Christmas cookies and decorating them with all sorts of frosting and sprinkles we will always put so much flour on our faces and take pictures it was a wondering memory growing up and I still instill this tradition with my kids..
I was blessed this year with my sister old mixer, she bought herself a real one, but while I am blogging this is for my daughter in law Lindsey, she has become quite the little baker, although she doest have the supplies, so thus year I bought her a rolling pin, set of mixing bowls, pie plate.because she made her first apple/pumpkin pies at thanks giving..my husband and my self took everything over to make the pies because she didn’t have the supplies. She goes to her mom’s or borrows from to bake anything….My fondness memory is bake with my Mom,sister,aunts and grandmother all together making holiday cookies.
A favorite holiday memory is travelling 12 hours to my grandparents to celebrate Christmas. We would sleep in the back of the family station wagon, while my parents drove through the night. When we got to grandma’s house, her counters would be covered with all sorts of holiday treats she had been baking in anticipation of our visit, and for all the holiday parties. Christmas morning was magical, as we awoke to presents under the tree, around the tree, and halfway down the walls on either side of the tree. Even as we opened our gifts, we hoped we’d be the one child who got to crawl way under the tree, to the furthest part of that corner to pull out the last of the presents. Later, the cousins would come over and we’d eat and play and gather near the fire in the living room. Good times! Merry Christmas, and thanks for the chance to win!
My favorite winter holiday memories would have to be the ones im creating this year for Christmas.
I grew up in the foster care system up untill i turned 18, so I never got to really celebrate Christmas or any holiday for that matter. My mother was deported when I was younger and had no money for the holidays but that didnt matter because she made up for it with the love she had for us in her heart. :) After turning 18 I knew it was going to be hard adjusting to the real world, and it definitely was. But, if it wasnt for the struggles I have gone through in my life, I wouldnt be the person I am today nor would I be where I am in life right now.
6 years later, after turning 18, I have my own apartment, the perfect job, an amazing boyfriend, and an awesome second family!! This year I am blessed to be able to put up my own very first christmas tree in my own very first HOME.
It is an amazing feeling knowing that I get to spend a real Christmas with my Boyfriends family, and not feel like I dont belong. They have been so amazing with me and I am forever grateful for them! Oh, and how can I forget the FOOD!! I get to enjoy the best home mad dishes ive had in years!! :)
Even though I cant celebrate with my brothers or my Mom this year, I know that at least this year and the following years to come I can now afford to send them gifts or even save enough for a visit/vacation. That is my ultimate Christmas wish! :)
Even if I dont win, im still winning.
Happy Holidays everyone. :)
My favorite holiday memory is of my grandmother making our Christmas tradition meatball soup. As a child chopping celery and listening to my grandmother talk about the early days of living in Holland with A house packed with family and grandma cooking in the kitchen where some of my fondest memories.
My family would chop down our own Christmas tree. We’d drive into the mountains, then strap on our snow shoes and wander around looking for the perfect Christmas tree. Then my dad would saw it down, tie it to the roof, and all the way home we’d listen to Christmas music and drink hot apple cider. One year the tree was too big to fit and we had to saw a few feet off the bottom! Usually there would be some spiders trying to hibernate in the branches, and they would wake up when the tree was brought inside and we’d a few crawling on the wall by the tree, eek! But it was worth it.
My favorite holiday memory of my childhood is of my dad – who couldn’t keep a secret! He waited until my mother was at work and then showed, and let me play with, my Christmas gifts before Christmas. Mom got a little suspicious when I didn’t act as surprised as I should have on Christmas morning!