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!
Spending Christmas Eve and Day in my room sequestered from family and relatives, not because I was naughty but because I had a highly contagious strain of Scarlet Fever. And I was seven years old. But almost every hour my father would come into my bedroom and bring me something to play with or read. Although I wasn’t hungry he would bring me small plates of food, including some of his homemade kolaches. Of course he would bring in the ones with the poppy seed filling, my favorites. While I should have missed the opening of presents and the family holiday meal, I felt the best gift of all was having my father to myself for several minutes each hour over the course of those two days.
Best Holiday memory happened every Christmas morning between the ages of 4-15. My mother would wake my brother and I up very early, like 3 am early and we would head to the airport in our cozy pajamas. It was our holiday tradition to get our favorite Starbucks drink and fly to Arizona to open our gifts with my grandparents. The excitement of waking up ridiculously early and sipping on chocolate first thing in the morning while in pajamas at the airport could not be beat! Traveling from Michigan to Arizona and leaving the snow and ice for Christmas in the slightly warmer desert was incredible. We would arrive early for my grandmas Finnish breakfast pancake and then the presents began! Afterwards was a drive through the desert and more cocoa. :)
Best holiday memory was waking up to a ton of snow on Christmas, rolling blading around the house (which was carpeted) and then sledding as the sun set. It was on 1996 or 1997.
I am a PNW girl at heart and a transplant to the beautiful rockies. I grew up with foggy Oregon coast winters and holiday meals featuring fresh, buttery crab, peppermint and passion fruit salt water taffies and clam chowder on Christmas Eve. My favorite holiday memory is tree hunting with my dad in the forested hillsides of northern Oregon. My dad carried me on his shoulders and I used my ariel view to pick the perfect fir. I lost my dad three years ago and have kept up the tradition of hunting my own tree, adorning it with woodland salt dough critters and cranberry garlands.
i remember building a snow polar bear ambling up our driveway with my dad and siblings. It was quite lifelike, though not quite the size of a real adult bear. It was about three feet tall ( on all fours) and about 4 or 5 feet long. I was around 10 years old at the time.
Back when I was a kid, I used to spend Christmas holidays in Barcelona (Spain) with my little sister which is were we grew up. Those days were all about eating comfort food, singing at home and watching tv on our cozy pj’s.
I remember one specific Christmas (I was about 9, my sister was 5) when my aunt brought home a bottle of Moscatell, an expensive really good-quality one.
-Moscatell is a typical Catalan sweet liquor usually served with biscuits or desserts with nuts, at the same time that coffee comes to a table. It can also be used in some of those desserts, I like to put a couple of tablespoons into the coffee when I make Tiramisù- You should try it Steph, it is delicious!
Well, my sister and I were obviously not allowed to try Moscatell when were kids, although we begged several times after hearing “how good it was” from the adults.
On the night of December 24th before going to bed, my mom, sister and I were preparing our slipers under the tree (Santa always left candy inside them) while my dad was preparing a cup of milk for Santa and water for the reindeers. We usually left some cookies as well.
I was already washing my teeth and listening how dad was reminding me: “if you don’t stay in bed sleeping all night, Santa will know and he won’t stop at our house!” (after that I obviously spent aaaaall night super nervous squeezing my eyes shut), when we suddently heard our mom saying: What did you do???
It was my little sister, she had poured almost all the bottle of Moscatell into a tall glass next to the cookies and milk.
“if Santa likes it, he will leave more presents for us!”
My parents still remember that, and laugh a lot remembering the fun night they had ahead drinking the glass of Moscatell and eating cookies after we left for bed.
Merry Christmas folks!
My favorite holiday memory was when I was younger all of my family members would go my aunt and uncle’s house where we’d hang out all day eating and playing games waiting for night to come so we could open up Christmas presents. I remember loving all of the chaos and commotion and just the feeling of everyone being together.
My favorite holiday memory is when we all come together around the dinner table looking at all the food we made. Just looking at the amount of food on the table was enough to make us full, but we still managed to stuff ourselves. We all ate so much that the next scene in our house is everyone lying around holding on to their bellies full of food. After dinner we all always come together and each gets to open one present of our choice which is always a good memory seeing everyone ripping the wrapping paper off making it rain christmas wrapping paper. But the best of all is just being altogether.
my favorite winter memory is my grandmother making Christmas cookies. Stirring the batters with a wooden spoon, kneading doughs, little mini cheesecake tin foils. That’s Christmas.
My favorite memory is growing up in Hong Kong and Christmas is always very festive. My parents would take me to see the lights around the city where they are new and different every year! My sister and I would get pretty new dresses to wear to take family photos with. My parents would then either make dinner at home or take us out for a family dinner! After coming to the US we started getting little gifts for friends and family. I enjoyed spending countless hrs shopping in store (before online shopping existed) ;) and taking it home to wrap them with my family. One must do for me every year is to decorate the house and bake cookies while playing Christmas music in the background because it reminds me of the festivity when I was young! Happy holidays!