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 parents loved Christmas. I used to say they were the most corniness folks I knew. They also loved their Family. So everything was pretty big. About the first of the December, the decorations would come out. Then the Christmas songs would start filling up the rooms of our house. And when it came time to getting the tree, we all had to go—me, my mom, dad, and brother. Picking out the tree would take longer than you could imagine but the final decision was made by my mom. One particular year, I saw this small Charlie Brown looking tree. It was so cute that I asked my dad if I could have my own tree in my room. Well, like I said they loved their Christmas….and some times indulged their children. So we took home two trees. And every year, after that I got my own tree. But even better than getting my own tree was the Christmas Tree Sandwich that my dad would make for us when we got home. A sandwich stacked with all kind of wonderful goodiness…fresh deli meats, grilled onions, lettuce and tomatoes and of course an egg to go on top….(we were eating eggs on sandwiches long before it was the trend…I actually thought my dad created that when I was little…and he didn’t correct me). Food is always apart of the best memories. Thank you for allowing me to share a little bit of mine.
My favorite memory would be waking up as soon as the sun came up and walking next door to my Grandmother’s house. She’d be up all night cooking the turkey, roast, sides and desserts. She used to call me her tester. She would give me a small sample of everything to try and give my opinion on. She is responsible for my love of cooking. Now that she is gone, I often think back to those days and I enjoy the fact that I get to raise my 3 boys in that house and feed them from that same kitchen.
Helping my mom bake has been my favorite part of the holiday season. Making white chocolate bark, roasted and sweetened nuts, hundreds of cookies for friends and family. The best part is the homemade stollen and hefekranz breads from my great grandmothers recipes. One day I will get to pass the knowledge on to my kids and they can taste the love.
my favorite holiday memory is that of my late aunt Arlene. We, my family and I, were at my aunt Yolanda’s house for christmas. My aunt Yolanda looked after my grandmother after my grandfather had passed away, so her house in Selma, CA would become the place where all the big family gatherings would be held. I hadn’t gotten to see much of my aunt Arlene much since she had taken up her position as a counselor up in the bay area. Since I had known her she was my favorite relative, she was the reason I started reading more, the reason I aspired to be a better student and the reason why I know how to make a proper sandwich. Anyways, I was sitting in one of the guest rooms with my brother and my cousin Becky when she popped in to give a big hug and kiss to my brother and me, she then planted herself firmly between us and chatted with us as we played video games. It wasn’t some grand moment, but just that time, while everyone else was setting the table, or complaining about whatever gifts they got or didn’t get, or just drinking spiked eggnog on the couch, my aunt just sat and caught up like no time passed at all with my brother and me. It is exactly what I think of when I am asked what the word, ‘home,’ means to me.
My favorite winter holiday memory was last year when Santa delivered bicycles to my two boys on Christmas morning. The weather that day wasn’t bad and they rode around the neighborhood with smiles stretching from ear to ear!
Growing up we never celebrated Christmas mostly because of financial reasons but that didn’t stop my brothers and I from begging for a Christmas tree. One year my mom finally caved and let us buy a small fake Christmas tree and decorations. We were so happy that we just grab decorations in like every color. When we decorated it was like a ugly rainbow tree but we loved it. We knew we weren’t going to get presents so we wrapped our old toys or just random things to put under the tree. It holds a special place in my heart because as the years went by the tree started looking nicer and we get lots of presents now. It still isn’t as exciting as first time we got our simple wish of just a tree.
When my grandma was still alive my family would always fly down to sunny San Diego to visit her for the holidays. There are a lot of fond memories and traditions – one of the things I remember is playing “guess the ornament” where someone would pick an ornament on the tree and others would take turns guessing which one. We still play that game in her memory each Christmas.
One Christmas in high school my family decided to be “Secret Santas” for another family in our church that had recently moved to the area. This couple had been living abroad and decided to adopt an entire family of kids (who happened to be the same age as mine). We gave up presents that year and picked out presents instead for the corresponding kid closest to our age. On Christmas Eve my oldest brother dressed up as Santa, we packed all the gift-wrapped presents in big black bags, and we drove to their neighborhood. My brother ran to their back door, dropped off the bags and ran. It was so fun to see the kids the next Sunday exclaiming over how Santa was real in the U.S.! They never did find out who gave the presents and we never told! And it’s still my favorite Christmas memory.
My mother was never big on crafts but I remember her spending the time to build a ridiculously large gingerbread house with me when I was about eight. It was especially unusual because we didn’t really do much holiday decorating. We baked the gingerbread and decorated the house and I was so proud! Of course, neither of us really liked gingerbread or the sugar candies we decorated with so it was totally decorative only and we decided that we liked baking stuff to eat better!
I had been wanting a purple bike REALLY bad. Well, after midnight mass, they came in and got me. Out I walked into the living room. There were lots of gifts but no purple bike. We got to open one present which we all did. But I was shattered … no purple bike. Then, all of a sudden, there was banging in the basement! I was frightened and looked to my Mom for comfort. She pretty much ran the house. But then my Dad said, very heroically I might add, “Everyone stay here and will go see what that noise is.” I was little but I will never forget how my Dad was protecting us all. We wait. It was scary. We hear some more noise, some muffled chatter then we could hear Dad coming up the stairs. “It’s all okay” he states then walks around the corner HOLDING MY PURPLE BIKE. “It was just Santa. He forgot to leave it here when he came earlier.” I cried out of relief and joy and sheer excitement! I had my beautiful purple bike and my Dad was my hero!
Years later I asked Dad how he did that. He told me he knocked on the window frame. I, to this day, never believed that because I heard the noise from downstairs. Dad passed at an early age, but he remains my hero at Christmas.