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 favorite memory is the same each year–my family (cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents) competes in a three-day Reindeer Games amongst ourselves to win a quilt my grandma has worked on throughout the year. The quilt is beautiful, but the competition is the main force for these games (which get BRUTAL!), as my family is ruthlessly competitive. We start with minute to win it games, always have some kind of scavenger hunt, have a day of minute-to-win it games, and finish with Bozo Pots (close to bozo buckets…but with dutch ovens and roasters and saucpans all lined up by size). Each game has a point value assigned and the winner gets the quilt. I’ve yet to win, but my family has won a total of seven quilts collectively, which we all love snuggling with throughout the year. It’s so much fun and makes for wonderful memories!
being with my mamaw (enola, whom my blog is named after) & papaw on their farm every christmas growing up, and having the privilege of learning to cook in the most southern of ways from both of them! and having my hands & pockets shoved full of little debbie cakes & candy when it was time to leave their farm. ❤️
i think my favorite memory is my first memory of Christmas. I was in the first grade and I was extremely sick with the chickenpox. I was home for a week with a high fever, confined to my upstairs bedroom. The first night I was able to get out of bed, I walked half way down the stairs and I saw this giant tree in the corner decorated in blue lights. Turns out my fever must have been high because we really had multicolored lights, but that is still my favorite memory.
Thanks for doing the giveaway!
My grandfather died right before I started culinary school. We were heartbroken for all of the obvious reasons, but I was especially sad that he wouldn’t be there to share my new food journey. He was the one who always cooked for us, and he definitely inspired my love of cooking. The first Christmas without him, I spent days in my kitchen trying to recreate one of his classic holiday dishes — inexplicably, sweet and sour chicken livers (think crispy livers, pineapple, sherry). I finally got it JUST RIGHT, and brought it to Christmas to share with my family. It was like having him there with us for another year. AND, now I’m crying.
My favorite Christmas memory is spending the holiday in Germany with my Oma and Opa. My parents would have Saint Nicholas and Krampus visit prior to the holiday to check if we made the good list (my cousin regularly broke down and confessed her wrong-doings from the year). On Christmas eve, after a amazingly DECADENT dinner, we would head out for a walk to spot Santa in the sky. Upon our return, we would discover he had already visited and we ‘just missed him’.
My favorite holiday memories is waking up to familiar scents of the Christmas tree, food, seeing the bright Christmas lights. Being surrounded by family and friends laughing and talking about past memories. Feeling like a child again with the excitement of opening gifts and seeing people’s reactions when they open theirs as well. Finding ways to stay warm while your nose is cold and bright red. Over the years you grow older and meet new amazing people in your life but the little details of the holidays never change. You never forget the familiar taste of a gingerbread cookie, the smell of pine needles, and the warmth of being wrapped up close to your loved ones watching your favorite Christmas movies. Those are all of my favorite holiday memories.
My fav holiday memory is actually only from two years ago! It was my son’s first Christmas. My brother’s, sister’s, and my family always go to our parents’ house for Christmas. There’s a big Christmas light festival in the town they live in. We always go, but this time my generation all had their babies to bring. It was really special, my cousins came with their kiddos as well. We danced and looked at lights and ate crappy festival food.
My favorite holiday memories include baking hundreds and hundreds of cookies every year with my mom, aunts, and grandma. We use all of my grandma’s old handwritten recipes on tattered and stained recipe cards. It is an all day event!
My best holiday memory involves my siblings. We’ve all been living apart since I was 9 and my brother wasn’t even born at the time so my sister and I had shared some Christmases before but never involving my brother. Last year, my sister decided to come and visit my brother and I for Christmas and after 17 years, my siblings and I spent our first Christmas together as adults. Presents were not important so long as we could finally celebrate the season together. I’m not normally emotional, but when it finally happened, I couldn’t hold it back and I made my sister cry. Finally I knew what it was like spending the holidays with my siblings. It’ll always be special and I’ll treasure that time with them always.
My family doesn’t celebrate any winter holiday (I’ve been working on getting them spirited during the holiday season though!) but I loved one year when I was little, we just walked outside in the snow for hours and enjoyed the crisp and quiet air while everyone else was inside. I guess we celebrated in our own way. :)