Please note that this contest is now closed and the winner has been notified. Thank you for all of your nostalgic entries!
Snow! Sleigh rides! Mulled wine! Not being able to feel your nose — these are all the things I’ll miss about not being able to be back in New England for Christmas this year. Out in San Francisco I can actually go out with just a light sweater these days and sometimes I even grab a coffee or some butter at the grocery store in my flip flips. You definitely don’t do either of those things in Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, or New Hampshire in December — unless you happen to be a college student who ran out of money for the laundry room.
So yes, I’m feeling a little nostalgic and a tad homesick again, but my friend Maggie from Eat Boutique (who incidentally throws amazing parties that I also really miss) had a fabulous idea. She offered to send one of you a delicious assortment of New England treats from her carefully curated line of gift boxes. The thought of being able to share a small taste of home with a reader of this blog warms my holiday heart. Thank you Maggie!
The Eat Boutique New England Gift Box contains all of the following goodies:
- Slightly sweet, totally crunchy granola from Cow & Crumb (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
- A caramel sauce made from goat’s milk from Fat Toad Farm (Brookfield, Vermont)
- Lark (Essex, Massachusetts) whole wheat oat cookies with cranberries and bittersweet chocolate
- A cherrywood smoked sea salt for finishing soups, roasts and veggies from Salt Traders (Ipswich, Massachusetts)
- One of the best maple syrups from Sweet Brook Farm (Williamstown, Massachusetts)
To enter this giveaway all you have to do is leave a comment on this post letting me know what your favorite holiday tradition is. Personally I like eating Eggnog Pancakes for breakfast, setting up my grandmother’s nativity scene, and watching Love Actually over and over again.
In addition, If you share the link to this contest on your own blog, Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ account you may have one additional entry for a total of two possible chances to win. If you choose this option please leave a link to your shout out as your second comment. A winner will be selected via the nifty random number generator on Friday, December 9th at 5:00 PM PST and then I’ll promptly arrange to have the giftbox shipped to your home. Please note that this box can only be shipped to U.S. residents. Best of luck and happy holidays!
{ 69 comments… read them below or add one }
Our family tradition – we always have Christmas Eve dinner together just our little family – we always go two weeks before Christmas and cut down our tree and make a day of it. I’m thinking eggnog pancakes sound good!
I tweeted and followed you @icywit
Our newest favorite tradition is spending the morning with our kids just the four of us opening presents and eating pancakes and bacon.
I also recently left New England. My favorite tradition is the annual family outing to the orchard to cut down the biggest tree we can find, then taking it home to decorate it with the same ornaments we’ve been hanging since I was little.
As we’re unwrapping presents, my dad always ties the bows around his head.
I love driving into the mountains to find snow and pick out the perfect Christmas tree!
My favorite tradition is watching Home Alone then going to Midnight Mass. Everything is beautiful, magical and there is no other time of year during which I feel closer to my family!
Making German Apple Pancake and searching for the pickle ornament hidden in the tree. 🙂
Making tamales with the family is my favorite holiday tradition!
My favorite holiday tradition is decorating the Christmas tree. I love sorting through ornamanets and remembering where they came from (or how old I was when I made them)!
I think the favorite tradition in this house is the corn casserole that I make.
It was a hand- me down recipe from my husband’s grandmother and whenever my kids see the ingredients they get excited. My daughter just said last week, “Oh, mom’s bought the stuff to make corn casserole! Christmas *must* be close now!”
As an aside, if I am lucky enough to win, can the box be shipped to someone other than myself? My aunt and uncle recently moved from New England (RI) to Texas and I bet a box full of NE goodness would be very welcome to them just about now.
Tweeted! https://twitter.com/#!/kathycancook/status/144076422405824513
I’m new to Christmas cheer, but tree-trimming has moved to the top of my list.
Watching It’s a Wonderful Life on TV on Christmas Eve!
Love lighting the candles and eating lots of fried latkes. And for Chanukah breakfast, topping leftover latkes with poached eggs!
My favorite tradition is cooking Christmas Eve dinner together. Whether we travel to Arizona for tamale making with extended family or staying put and coming up with something creative, like last year’s Rouladen.
Chorizo and egg burritos for Christmas morning breakfast. Bristol Farms in California makes the best fresh chorizo. Now that I’m in Utah when ever my daughter goes back for a visit I have her bring me 3 to 5 lbs and freeze it. I’m ready for Christmas.
My favorite holiday tradition is frisbee after the big Christmas Eve meal, and a round of Cranium around the fireplace before everyone goes to bed.
Sent a Tweet about the giveaway
Every year I buy matching pajamas for my daughter and I to wear for Christmas morning.
so many holiday traditions to love! i admit, christmas has always been my favorite, but i went through a brief spell of loathing when i worked in retail – nothing like being a mall for 8 hours a day during holiday shopping season…
on christmas morning, my dad always wakes up early, builds a fire in the fireplace, and makes coffee and breakfast for us (which usually includes baking the cinnamon rolls i’ve made the night before). he reads the christmas story and we all take turns opening presents. it’s a very simple celebration but it’s one i’ve always loved.
We love to open our stockings and then watch Elf while making waffles for breakfast.
We always have cream french toast made with whipping cream on Christmas morning. We top it with thawed frozen raspberries and maple syrup – best breakfast of the year!
so many things about christmas that I look forward to but I think I love the decorating of the house- going through the decor that has so many memories attached- is the part that really does it for me.
Hosting my annual cookie party.
I’ll be honest – I like to travel over Christmas. I live in Alaska, so winter is an ideal time to leave the state.
Last year, my boyfriend and I were in Rishikesh, India on Christmas. No one even mentioned the holiday. It was kind of cool.
That being said, I’m originally from New England, and these goodies are making me homesick!
a breakfast casserole with eggs, maple sausage, shiitake mushrooms, sourdough bread, herbs…YUM!
This assortment from Maggie sounds amazing!
We make a gingerbread house, then after the holidays my husband & son blow it up.
One of my absolute favorite holiday traditions also involves making the famous Erin Cooks Eggnog Pancakes!!
Our favorite family tradition is watching “The Christmas Story” movie on Christmas Eve. We’ve done it for so many years, we all know the dialogue by heart!
I would love to win this!! Having just moved to the bay area from CT I’m really missing the beautiful New England winter. One of my favorite traditions is hassling my husband about putting lights on the house. It’s all in good fun and he loves pretending to hate it, but I know he secretly loves how it makes me smile to see everything adorned in pretty white lights.
Going to carol sing. It is so uplifting!
Um, that caramel sauce is calling my name…. 🙂 My favorite holiday tradition is going to The Christmas Revels in Cambridge — been doing it since I was a wee one!
My favorite tradition is baking lots of different kinds of Christmas cookies! Also decorating the tree!
I love having our small family all together for Christmas. Then, we have the meal that was requested by each member.
A picnic in front of the fire on a quiet Christmas with me and my husband.
Well, I’m actually hoping for some new traditions this year… For the first time, I’ll be spending my Christmas with my partner’s family in NC (instead of with my extended family in CT or PA). My all-time favorite tradition, however, is my cousins and I taking our grandfather’s toboggan out on the golf course by their cabin.
I make a stuffed eggnog french toast for breakfast every Christmas.
I shared on Google+
https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/110791866005945843444/
My favorite Christmas movie is Love Actually toooooo!!!! Thanks Erin!
Oh my husband was just drooling over the maple syrup in the Vermont Country catalog last night and I see there is some in this gift box. Pick me, pick me! Our empty nest traditions are different than when we still had our daughter at home. We always decorate at least one of our four trees together. He loves ornaments and we outgrew just one or two trees long ago! He’s even got an entire tree full of baseball men and cars! That goes in his “man cave!”
I like driving around and seeing all the Christmas lights.
I just shared on Facebook! I feel like a dork because I have no idea how to give you my fb link from this phone, but if you need it let me know so I can find someone to help. Thanks!
My favorite holiday tradition is Christmas brunch at my grandma’s with all my family. It’s really just an excuse to eat yummy food from 11am to 2pm.
I also tweeted the link here https://twitter.com/#!/Jadie15/status/144166596087259137
Favorite holiday tradition? When we used to get to open one of our presents from our parents on Christmas Eve. These products sound like a lot of fun, though I’d vote for them to include Taza Chocolates or Effie’s Corn Cakes in a future box. I love and miss those.
Watching PeeWee’s Christmas Special while eating batches of
yummy decorated sugar cookies!
I always make pj bottoms for all of my children. This year I have been bedridden for 6 weeks so they may have to wait until Valentine’s to get their pj’s.
Oooh I would LOVE this package, even though I do live in New England! Hehe… My favorite tradition is opening a gift on Christmas Eve. I know a lot of people do it, but it’s fun and something cute to look forward to 🙂
We “ice skate” in our socks on the living room floor after we decorate the tree. The neighbors think we’re… special.
Sending you something for X-Mas breakfast!! Can you guess!!
We watch the 1938 version of Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol” on Christmas Day
My favorite Christmas tradition is going to the tree farm to pick out our tree. It sometimes takes a while before we all can agree. Then the boys cut it and the kids pull it down the hill. After that it is cocoa, cookies and hot dogs in the little “store” at the tree farm.
Eating New year’s pinch cake with my family! Merry Christmas everyone!
no favorite holiday traditions – don’t have happy memories of the upcoming holiday so just try to get through the season as gracefully as possible.
Putting up the Christmas tree, the day after Thanksgiving. I get so excited! It’s like I’m a kid again.
I tweeted about this! @rydersm
sticky cinnamon buns on christmas morning while we open presents 🙂
We love attending our city’s zoo’s Festival of Lights as a family. So festive and fun!
My favorite tradition from childhood is monkey bread on Christmas morning. My husband’s favorite tradition, which I have adopted, is to save all the Christmas cards that arrive in December to open all together on Christmas Day.
we eat tamales for breakfast Christmas morning, drenched in ketchup.
I love baking rugelach cookies, and watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (only the 1964 version)!
Cookie decorating, Mom’s cornbread dressing, and last minute present wrapping while watching midnight Mass on television.
My favorite time of year. I set up 2 Christmas trees and decorate all over the house. I bake at least 10 different kinds of cookies, and make ravioli for Christmas dinner. Exhausting, but wouldn’t change a thing! I miss New England also…my whole family is there.
My favorite tradition is what we do on Christmas morning– open stockings while drinking coffee, eat a big nice breakfast with very specific things (homemade cinnamon rolls and Fancy Egg Scramble… and usually fresh pineapple) that my mom makes every year, then open presents (one at a time, person by person!). I cherish the fact that we always spend Christmas morning this way!
We always make a chocolate-peanut butter pie the night before Christmas…delicious!
Tweet
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Each Christmas morning I wake up early to make Christmas tree rolls – even though my children are now adults, they still request the rolls each Christmas and I take pleasure in baking them.
My sister moved from Maine about 40 years ago. Seldom is a time when she can afford to visit. Listening for Santa’s sleigh, sneaking down in the morning to look at the stockings hung by the fireplace and agonizingly waiting for breakfast to end so presents could be open are few early memories of Christmas in Maine.
It would be nice to send this to her.