Sunday
Dec212008
*TIME’S UP!* Holiday Giveaway Extravaganza Spectacular Spectacle!
Sunday, December 21, 2008 at 9:34AM
Welcome to our first-ever Holiday Giveaway Extravaganza Spectacular Spectacle! Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah (or Chanukah, if you prefer)! Make the Yuletide gay!
Whatever you're celebrating, we want to help make your holiday a little brighter.
That's why we're giving away -- in our Holiday Giveaway Extravaganza Spectacular Spectacle -- three fabulous prize packages full of wonderfulness and awesomeness.
Tell them what they can win, Bob!
Bob?
BOB?
Fine, I'll just fill you in myself.
By entering our contest, you'll be eligible to win one of three great prizes.
Prize #1: A Three Irish Girls Sock Kit. This includes your choice of any of our awesome patterns and a skein of yarn in your choice of colorways to complete the pattern! If you are already a sock club member and you have all of our patterns, we'll have a special alternative for you. (Approx. $28 value!)
You know you want a pair of socks like these:
Prize #2: A custom colorway consultation and two skeins of a custom colorway! We can make your colorways dreams come true! On your favorite yarn base! (Approx $50 value!) Exclamation point!
Prize #3: Three months of your choice of club memberships! Sock Yarnista features your choice of two colorways, a custom designed pattern, and a fun extra each month.
If you prefer heavier weight yarns, Stash Menagerie has a broad variety of fibers, your choice of two colorways, and fun extras every few months!
Being a club member also gives you access to exclusive members-only colorways like these:
If you're already a club member, you can extend your membership, add extra skeins to your existing membership, become a member of a club you're not in, or give the membership as a gift to a very lucky person. (Approx $90 value.)
Why are we giving all of this away? For a few reasons. One is the spirit of the holidays. We like brightening people's days a little with a yummy yarn package. It's good to put a little good out there in the world.
Another is to say thank you for all of your support this past year -- you've been with us as we've moved into a new studio, expanded our yarn offerings, and started new clubs. We would be nowhere without our fantastic customers, and we want to say thank you.
Here's how you enter: leave a reply to this post answering the following question: What is your favorite holiday tradition? Do you have a latke party? (And does your house smell like latkes for three weeks afterward?) Do you have a family outing to cut down a Christmas tree? Do you bake something special? Watch something special? Go somewhere special?
If so, I want to hear about it!
Winners will be randomly selected from the responses. You have until Monday, December 22nd at 9pm EST to reply. Winners will be announced Tuesday, December 23rd.
If you'd like to give any of these prizes as a gift, that can certainly be arranged!
Thank you again, dear readers and loyal customers.
Whatever you're celebrating, we want to help make your holiday a little brighter.
That's why we're giving away -- in our Holiday Giveaway Extravaganza Spectacular Spectacle -- three fabulous prize packages full of wonderfulness and awesomeness.
Tell them what they can win, Bob!
Bob?
BOB?
Fine, I'll just fill you in myself.
By entering our contest, you'll be eligible to win one of three great prizes.
Prize #1: A Three Irish Girls Sock Kit. This includes your choice of any of our awesome patterns and a skein of yarn in your choice of colorways to complete the pattern! If you are already a sock club member and you have all of our patterns, we'll have a special alternative for you. (Approx. $28 value!)
You know you want a pair of socks like these:
Prize #2: A custom colorway consultation and two skeins of a custom colorway! We can make your colorways dreams come true! On your favorite yarn base! (Approx $50 value!) Exclamation point!
Prize #3: Three months of your choice of club memberships! Sock Yarnista features your choice of two colorways, a custom designed pattern, and a fun extra each month.
If you prefer heavier weight yarns, Stash Menagerie has a broad variety of fibers, your choice of two colorways, and fun extras every few months!
Being a club member also gives you access to exclusive members-only colorways like these:
If you're already a club member, you can extend your membership, add extra skeins to your existing membership, become a member of a club you're not in, or give the membership as a gift to a very lucky person. (Approx $90 value.)
Why are we giving all of this away? For a few reasons. One is the spirit of the holidays. We like brightening people's days a little with a yummy yarn package. It's good to put a little good out there in the world.
Another is to say thank you for all of your support this past year -- you've been with us as we've moved into a new studio, expanded our yarn offerings, and started new clubs. We would be nowhere without our fantastic customers, and we want to say thank you.
Here's how you enter: leave a reply to this post answering the following question: What is your favorite holiday tradition? Do you have a latke party? (And does your house smell like latkes for three weeks afterward?) Do you have a family outing to cut down a Christmas tree? Do you bake something special? Watch something special? Go somewhere special?
If so, I want to hear about it!
Winners will be randomly selected from the responses. You have until Monday, December 22nd at 9pm EST to reply. Winners will be announced Tuesday, December 23rd.
If you'd like to give any of these prizes as a gift, that can certainly be arranged!
Thank you again, dear readers and loyal customers.
Reader Comments (479)
My favorite holiday tradition is having a cookie exchange. I just went to one at a friend's house and it is wonderful getting together with friends and sharing recipes and just catching up.
My other favorite tradition is making candy cane cookies with my kids. I love how they sit and talk about things they would never think to talk about if we weren't doing something together.
Well this isn't a very *nice* tradition, but it is the first one that came to mind and it's in the top three favorites. Every Thanksgiving after we go to the big family gathering and exhaust ourselves with the day's festivities, my husband and I come home, get the girls in bed, make a big plate of leftovers, and sit down at our dining room table to ever-so-lovingly trash all of our family. Oh come on, you know you do it too!
The thing we do each and every year is put up the gifts under the tree the 24th late at night and the kiddos wake us up around 6:30am-7am on the 25th to open their presents. After we're done picking up all the papers, boxes etc... we eat a small breakfast and the kids keep on playing all day long with their new toys :)
My favorite tradition is opening Christmas stockings. When we were growing up, we'd open stockings (everyone had a stocking and we'd open one gift at a time, taking turns ), then have breakfast and then open under the tree gifts. I'm turning 40 next month and we still do it the same way, even though it's usually just my mom, my husband, and me. We drive to her house Christmas morning and do it the exact same way.
My favorite tradition is to take a vacation day to devote to cookie baking. Sometime in mid-November, I get an overwhelming urge to begin looking at recipes. My other favorite is to drag out all my CDs of English cathedral choirs singing carols (and to listen to them while knitting).
My favorite holiday tradition is giving the kids a stuffed animal on Christmas eve night. This was always my favorite part about Christmas when I was a kid and I love being able to carry on those traditions that were important to me as a kid. I still remember hugging my animal, sleeping in the same bed with my sis and barely able to sleep with the anticipation of what tomorrow would bring.
My favorite tradition is a relatively new one. A few years ago my father and his wife moved to Miami. Now, when we visit for Christmas, we open presents on Christmas morning and then go sit on the beach for a few hours before having Christmas dinner. For someone like me, who grew up in the cold of the northeast, it feels pretty decadent to be basking in the sun and sand on Christmas day.
Definitely watching the Grinch (original) and driving around to look at Christmas lights & decorations on the homes in our town. These are from my childhood and I have passed them along to my daughter.
Being a new family with a little guy just starting to understand Christmas, we don't really have any traditions yet. This year he is loving the lights on the tree and all the decorated houses.
I think one tradition we will start and keep up is driving around looking at all the beautifully decorated homes and yards. We've done it a couple times so far this season and Ethan loves it.
Probably my favorite holiday tradition is the carolling that happens down the main street of our town tonight. At the end(at the bottom of the hill), the kids gather around and do more carolling and some of the local grownups do readings. We always gather before and after for yummy chili and desserts. Hope you have similar festivities where you are...Happy Holidays.
My favorite holiday tradition is Christmas Eve dinner with our neighbors. When I was growing up, we always spent Christmas Eve with the family next door since our extended family lived far away and they had very little family around too. We became each other's family. Even when they moved an hour away we continued this tradition. Now I have a family of my own and coincidentally built our house right behind theirs! We don't see much of each other during the year, but I love getting together and catching up with these friends that have become such an important part of our lives!
My very favorite Christmas tradition is one from my childhood. My grandpa had all us grandkids convinced he was Santa Claus. For the day or two before Christmas, he made sure we'd all "catch" him polishing his black boots, hear him talking about how he'd have a late night Xmas eve, and he'd start laughing "Ho Ho Ho" then catch himself and clear his throat. It was years before I was convinced there wasn't actually a Santa. I was pretty sure he was alive and well in Annapolis...
When my brothers and I were young, my mom always used to insist we stop and sit at the top of the stairs before we came down to see our presents. Naturally, we grumbled, and if Mom didn't have that camera ready the minute we were at the top of the stairs, she heard about it!
So we all grew up and went away to college, and when we came home for Christmas, Mom couldn't figure out why we hadn't all come downstairs. She found us sitting at the top of the stairs waiting for the picture. She was stunned when we insisted it was a Christmas tradition we had to keep. And we have, no matter how creative we have to get. One Christmas, my youngest brother was the only one home, so he posed at the top of the stairs with my wedding picture on one side of him and a picture of his twin on the other. That same year my husband and I were living in a ranch house that didn't have stairs...but there were stairs in the backyard up to the gazebo, so we posed there. And we've carried it on to our kids--for my son's first Christmas, we lived in a house with only one step, so we sat him there for his picture.
This year the stairs are going to be crowded--my husband and two kids, and the older twin and his wife and daughter are all at my parents, so we'll all be at the top of the stairs on the morning of Dec 25!
My husband and I got married 3 years ago and we inherited a bunch of Christmas ornaments from my dad. We decided we wanted to build up an ornament collection that was special to us, so every year we go to the store and select one special ornament together then go home and decorate the tree together. Last year, after we bought our house, we bought a big, pretty Christmas tree and lots of new ornaments to fill it up, but the three special ones are still my favorite and we will continue to pick out a new one every year.
My favorite tradition is putting up the Christmas tree with my husband on the day after Thanksgiving - it's the first day to enjoy the Christmas season, but before all of the holiday stress begins!
My favorite holiday tradition started about 12 years ago with an open house on Christmas Eve. It is a party for our friends. We drink Glug that we made last holiday season, eat good food and just laugh. About a half an hour before everyone goes home we put on the Grinch for the kids. Well the kids range in age from 10 - almost 18 and they still sit in front of the TV and watch the Grinch. I can't imagine Christmas Eve without this party.
When we had our first daughter almost 13 years ago, she was 10months and i was so busy getting ready for christmas and visiting family i had not had an opportunity to get alot of laundry done. so christmas morning of her first christmas we get up open presensts and take the requisite pictures for the album... only to get them back from shop to discover how tatty and too small her pjs were. so now 2 more kids later every year my kids get brand new pjs to open christmas morning with their stockings. they always look nice and they love to have something new to wear that is not fussy. so a new tradition in our house was born. when the garndchildren come along i will continue this. my gift to their parents.
We have a family cookie baking party and several of the things we bake are family recipes that only get baked once a year--such as rosettes. These are really just funnel cakes shaped like snow flakes. We always watch Christmas Vacation and laugh at the very same scenes (when Clark sprays his sled with the cereal coating) and have a wonderful time.
My favorite Christmas tradition is spending time with my family and eating yummy homemade goodies. I bake cookies and pies and we eat them up while the kids open presents. I also love going to the River of Lights display we have here. It's so fun to see all the decorations while sipping some nice hot chocolate!
Getting new pajamas, reading The Night Before Christmas and hanging our stockings on Christmas Eve is a tradition from my husband's family.
On Christmas Eve, the children get to open one present... a brand new set of jammies. They get dressed up in them (last year, my mother-in-law gave the grown-ups new jammies too!) then we all snuggle up on the couch to read The Night Before Christmas. When we finish reading, we take turning hanging our stockings before the kids set out a plate of milk and cookies for Santa.
Then my husband and I work to get the children into bed (in their own beds) so that we can wrap presents and stuff stockings.
It was wonderful for me to adopt these holiday traditions since my family did not really have have any, unless you can count being dysfunctional. Having traditions to keep has made the holidays so much more enjoyable for me!
My favorite tradition is continuing my Grandmother's tradition of making homemade raviolis for our Christmas dinner. She made these (from scratch) raviolis from her mother's recipe and then passed them down to my father. Every Christmas my Dad would spend all day making the dough and forming the raviolis by hand; my sister and I would sit at the counter and watch him for hours. When he died the tradition passed on to me and now I make the raviolis following my Grandmother's recipe and my Dad's techniques.
So my new favorite tradition is one my family has only been doing for two years (this will be the third), but has made gift shopping much more fun...
Now that my sisters and I are all adults and working, no one in our family really 'wants' any gifts. So about two years ago, we started doing a $20 limit on gifts for each other and our parents. The challenge then becomes to buy something for each person that they'll actually want/use without going over $20-$25. We have great fun hitting sales, using coupons, buying used...whatever...to get each other what they want...and then later sharing the stories of our triumphs :).
Now that my sister and I live a few states away from the rest of our family and my mom (a nurse) and my sister (a cook) usually have to work on Christmas, we wait until January or February when my sister and I can travel home to celebrate and exchange gifts...so the holiday just keeps on going for a few more weeks :)
My life has changed much in the last five years.
A significant other,
a wonderful, smart, creative son I had 11 days before my 44th birthday (1st child, 1st pregnancy) in 2005,
significant other leaving,
depression and deep love,
sadness and joy,
continued great health and creativity of my son,
but some traditions which I started when I left home prevail and one since my childhood reign. Getting a special and new ornament each year to mark the year and remember each subsequent year, and everyone decorating the tree. My son, our two cats, and myself (our team) helped this year.
Decorating the tree is a lovely tradition that brings lots of good, and some sad, memories but they are memories of life. Sharing it with my own child, one I thought I'd never have, has been lovely.
This year we drove and walked around seeing lights and decorations both lit and not. The joy a young child experiences with each siting is also lovely. The joy my son creates by seeing each decoration as if each one is new, priceless.
The tree has always been my favorite. Most of our childhood ornaments, and who could believe felt people on the old fashioned clothespins would last 30 and 40 yrs, were swept away by Hurricane Katrina (my sisters house was swept away in a matter of hours).
My sister was the keeper of most of the childhood ornaments. She found one of those felt clothed clothespin people about eight months later a mile away from where they had lived- almost perfectly intact.
Now that's a sign to keep traditions.
Season's Greetings to All!!!
My favourite Christmas tradition is opening stockings. My parents have always put together a stocking for me and my step-brother with lots of little gifts and clementines inside. The stockings are always hung up on our bedroom doors. When we were younger, we were allowed to get up early and open them up, but than had to wait an hour or two to wake up my parents.
They still do this now - I'm 28, my step-brother is 25. And my fiance now gets his own stocking too!
Our Christmas tradition is to drive north to New England to see my family, where my mother tries to establish a new Christmas tradition every year. Shrimp cocktail! Baked blueberry french toast! Sledding! New matching sweaters!