December 1st...it's time for the annual Tauer Perfumes Advent calendar! Andy Tauer is doing things a little differently this year because sometimes, yes, there are more important things than perfume:
I decided that I will not do a draw for fragrant goodies every day during the advent days Dec. 1- 24, but that I will also do some charity and that I will invite my readers to do the same. You know: What we experience these past few weeks/months/years is – I think- an epoch-making change, and maybe an invitation to consider relooking at some things.
But there is a prize today, and we are very pleased to host the first draw. Today's winner gets the 30 ml Tauerville Flash scent of their choice: Rose, Amber, Vanilla or Incense.
For a chance to win the December 1st prize, leave a quick comment below telling us your favorite holiday (this holiday, or any holiday) tradition. The very simple rules:
- Be sure to use the “Post a comment” box; do not reply to another comment! All replies to comments will be deleted.
- Almost anybody, almost anywhere,* can enter, so long as I have permission to use the email address in your reader account to contact you. If the email address in your reader account is incorrect, you might want to fix it.
- If you are the winner and you fail to send me your mailing details within a couple weeks, we'll have to pick another winner.
We'll be accepting comments through tomorrow morning (2 December, around 11-am-ish Eastern US time), at which point a winner will be chosen at random. I will announce the winner later in the day. Good luck everyone!
And don't forget to check the Advent calendar page every day to find out what other prizes and charity events are happening!
*Tauer Perfumes is no longer able to mail to Italy, Spain, Russia, Croatia, Greece or Brasil, sorry! (But yes, you are still welcome to enter so long as you can provide a mailing address elsewhere.) And wherever you live, local taxes, VAT, and import fee may apply and are not covered by Tauer. The winner is responsible for making sure that they are allowed to import the prize.
Cooking Christmas lunch (or dinner, depending) is my favourite ritual. The kids and I plan it together, and we all muck in to help. This year it will be dinner, which we will eat outside (it’s summer here) looking out over the garden. Lovely.
Thanks for the draw!
When we were living abroad, Swiss raclette cheese, was hard to get and expensive. But it’s a family favorite, so we made it into a treat and our dinner on Christmas Eve, before lighting the candles on the tree and opening presents. Presents etc have taken a back stage, but we still have raclette on the 24th 15 years later 🙂
So many to choose from! However, I vote Halloween because free candy + dress up for all (including pets) + jack-o-lantern decorating + bonding with friends and family.
My favorite holiday tradition is trimming the tree, and getting out the usual suspect ornaments and also adding some new ones.
Best done with a mug of hot beverage and all my favorite people and pets involved.
Thank you for the draw!
Thank you for the draw! US!
My favorite tradition is the family gathering at my aunt’s nature BandB in the middle of nowhere.
I love baking gingerbread cookies. The smell is heavenly.
Thank you for the draw!
I love Christmas Eve dinner, Easter Sunday breakfast and many others. Living in Japan for a while we adapted local holidays, like Autumn Moon Festival when you stare at the full moon eating special cookies; I find it very charming 🙂
Thank you for the draw.
My favourite has always been Christmas Eve, literally sitting around the Christmas tree, slowly unwrapping gifts all evening long – we tend to go a bit overboard, though as nobody’s having children, the crowd and pile of gifts keeps shrinking…
In South Africa our Christmases are quite hot, and we mostly do a cold buffet table for Christmas Eve. But on the day itself, the gammons do tend to come out, heat be damned!
As a child, my favourite holiday tradition was leaving my boot out on the fifth of December. Saint Nicholas would come during the night and fill it with chocolate, candy, and a satsuma orange.
Thank you very much for the draw !
My favourite is Lunar New Year holiday, when my girlfriend and I visit relatives then travel to different places to learn new culture, history and enjoy the scene, cuisine.
Let’s see, decorating the tree after Thanksgiving weekend. Putting the gaudy Christmas sweaters on the dogs. After the opening of the gifts and a leisurely lunch, we nap and then go out to see a movie. We have really scaled back as we have aged but these rituals haven’t changed. Thanks for the draw!
Not really a “tradition per se,” but the holiday season is the one time of the year that I catch up with university friends, since we all live far away now, but our families are still in the city where we went to uni.
This is the most beautiful month of the year. I can’t wait to drink a good wine and decorate the Christmas tree.
Thank you for the draw!
Happy holidays to everyone!
Christmas would have to be my favorite time of year! I love seeing the excitement on my grandchildren faces, as they day draws near! We love decorating the tree, and planning our Christmas dinner. It’s the time of year I remember all my loved ones that have passed on, and there is always a mixture of sadness, and happiness……
Oooh goody – one us antipodeans can participate in! Favourite tradition – making a Christmas cake. I bake the cake in October, pour over a slug of brandy each week until the end of November. Then a layer of marzipan goes on and another week to dry out. Then the royal icing and decoration, including a little Finnish wooden elf I bought a long time ago in Helsinki, in the land of Santa Claus.
Thank you for the draw!
My favorite holiday is Christmas, because I get to spend time with the people I love. Also, because of the beautiful decorations.
Our favourite holiday is Christmas and our tradition comes from our days owning a bookshop when it was the busiest time of the year and we worked 7 long days a week for over a month. On Christmas Eve we close our doors and it’s just us and our pets and we eat, drink and read as much as we please. Our gifts are small but many and we give gifts to – and from our pets (2 keeshonds and a cat). It’s a bit nuts but it makes us all happy.
My favorite tradition is cooking an excessively large meal and taking an excessively long time to open our presents on Christmas Day. The time and joy spent with family on this day has created so many great memories!
My favorite Christmas tradition is listening to Christmas albums while I wrap presents. I always start with Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift for You, and I refuse to let his personal awfulness take that music away from me.
i love the build up to Christmas. going with my family to collect and decorate a tree, making preparations and the anticipation of what is to come!
My favorite holiday tradition is at New Year: my sister and I pick a song to listen to together that will set the tone for the new year. 🙂
My favorite tradition is the Christmas Eve dinner. It’s a very special event in my country, probably more important than Christmas day itself. We always eat ir with the whole family, and also put a plate on the table for those family members who have passed away. It is believed that their souls come home on this night to be with their loved ones. It feels very sacred and precious.
In Finland it is traditional to have a bonfire on Midsummer eve. We go with friends and family to the archipelago to our summer cottage and have a huge bonfire with our neighboring cottages and after the fire has burned to an ember we grill sausages, corncobs and marshmallows. Its a wonderful and magical night as the sun doesn’t really set, and you are on a semi-isolated island with the people you love most.
Great chance! Thank you and Andy Tauer!
I hope this season would bring peace and joy!
I like every single holiday, but I should confess I most like the egg-coloring for Easter and the custom for putting a coin in the traditional Christmas bread. Whoever has the red-colored or strongest egg, and whoever finds the coin in the bread they will be healthy and prosperous throughout the year!
Thank you for the draw! My favourite holiday is Christmas and my favourite tradition is not Christmas morning but Christmas Eve when everything seems so magical and full of expectation. When the kids go up to bed and they are so excited and they are looking in the sky for Santa. I tell you, it makes all the hard work totally worth it.
Working in retail for the last ten years has really eroded my love of Christmas (the music starts NOVEMBER FIRST so you’re good and sick of it by the time December rolls around, let alone Christmas itself), so I don’t decorate or bake or anything else any more. But we do have a New Year’s Day tradition! Every year we get up and go to the same restaurant nearby and have breakfast.
Bah humbug!
Thanks for the draw. 🙂
My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. It’s a bit more relaxing than Christmas. I have a fairly large family and everyone contributes to the meal. We all come together with great food and family time.
During the last days of december every year I create a special fragrance that I use as a room spray all next year 🙂
My favourite Christmas holiday tradition is giving presents. Wrapping presents, I’m not so much fussed with as I’m not very good at it and haven’t got any better through the years. Fortunately, I’m told it’s the thought that counts…
For me, it’s a tie between Passover and Thanksgiving. Both are wonderful, festive gatherings of family with amazing food, but both also hold much deeper meaning that resonates with us, still. On Passover, we celebrate our exodus from slavery in Egypt as if it happened to us, in our own day. We remember the bitter tears of enslavement, and celebrate the joy of freedom. On Thanksgiving, we are reminded of what it means to be a stranger in a new land, and to give thanks for the kindness of others, and the bounty of nature. Both holidays make me pause in my daily routine and take stock of who I am, where I’ve come from, and what it means to be a complete human being. And the food is AMAZING. Happy Holidays, Andy!
Our favourite tradition in Italy is knocking on the chimney with wooden branches asking the chimney to bring the presents. The lights go off and the presents suddenly “fall” out of the chimney hole. Everyone starts to grab the pennies, sweets, tiny packages and oranges and it starts all over again until all presents are over.
I like both Easter and Christmas eve. I think I prefer Easter because of the lovely flowers that are in season then. But xmas eve with it’s Tourtiere, a French Canadian meat pie and other goodies is a joy as well.
My favorite part of the winter holiday season is making (and eating) the cookies. My grandmother made scads of cookies and sent them out to everyone she knew. My mother had a list of a couple dozen different recipes that she rotated, making 6 or eight different sorts and sending them out to all her far flung family. I am making 3 or 4 sorts this year, Chocolate chip dried cherry oatmeal cookies, Mincemeat tarts with a whole wheat sugar cookie crust, Sour cream and candied ginger molasses cookies, and Almond shortbread. I will send them to my siblings and adorable hubbie’s siblings. Happy Holidays…and that’s for the chance for some Tauer flash! I am a huge fan and will be getting at least one of these flashes soon! Probably amber…
The most obvious choice would be Christmas, with all its fantastic scents, but one which I old more dear to my childhood nose is Easter. Ah the smell of gun powder from fire crackers! Divine memories.
My favourite holiday is Halloween. I love the turn in the weather from warm to cool and the way the light changes . Dry leaves, log fires, dressing up , candy , who could ask for more!
I love Christmas and New Year’s Eve. So many opportunities to do nice things for people and show them you care. Candles, incense, and fragrant trees; the way the air smells when snow is on the way.
Although we put our Christmas tree up several weeks before the 25th, we only partially decorate it. On Christmas Eve we make hot cocoa/cookies for the kids or wine/appetizers for the adults and bring out the “heirloom” ornaments. These range from a beautiful, hand-blown glass cathedral to a Charlie Brown Christmas Snoopy doghouse. As long as they have some meaning in out family-they qualify. We then share stories about the significance of each piece for the next generation.
Christmas Eve services, special holiday treats, driving through the gorgeous light display in Waterworks Park then opening gifts with family. The most special night of the year for us!! Thanks for the generous offering!
Hello,
My favorite holiday tradition is probably making sure that all of the new babies in my life have a pair of warm booties. They don’t have to be Christmas-themed; they just have to be cute. I am currently knitting three pairs.
Thanks for this chance to win a treat!
-deborah
While Christmas is indeed a special time, it is Halloween that I really love; Fall is my favorite season, and the beautiful colors and the smells of the first wood fires meshes so nicely with the witches, goblins, black cats and the joy of children in costume. When my daughter was young, I especially enjoyed helping her choose what she wanted to be and making the costume with/for her. Miss that part!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all, and may your days be filled with joy, merriment and for all us perfumistas, with the wonderful scents of the season!
My favorite tradition is opening presents with my family – I moved out awhile ago but I love to go back and visit so we can open gifts together. My mom will even sometimes still give me and my sister a gift from Santa. 🙂 My anniversary is also on New Year’s Day, so that’s always a fun way to ring in the new year!
Thanks for hosting this giveaway and thank you to Tauer perfumes as well! Here’s to a festive and fragrant holiday season!
Favorite tradition: All of the family coming over on Christmas Eve morning to open presents and then we have a Mexican food brunch after.
I love Thanksgiving! The family gathering and the fun conversation over good food and games makes this holiday the best.
Thank you!
I love Halloween! There is plenty of candy and treats and dressing up and little stress or overblown expectation. Pure fun and a holiday for giving.
Favorite Christmas tradition is heading outdoors on Winter Solstice night to gaze at the star filled night sky and wearing Pacifica’s Avalon Juniper (I have one bottle of this discontinued beauty left and I save it to be worn exclusively on Winter Solstice).
My favorite tradition is definitely Christmas Eve dinner. My family skips the traditional Christmas ham and goes for something more in tune with my mom’s culture–slow-braised pork. Nothing like carnitas to warm you up on the holidays! This is paired with some great wine of course and then a drive around town (weather permitting) to look at Christmas lights. Thank you for the draw!
My very favorite holiday tradition is decorating our Christmas tree. Nothing makes ordinary things special quite like doing them in the light of a tree.
Thank you!
I love the fourth of July! I love cooking out, being outside with friends in the hot summer and watching fireworks!
I love all sorts of holidays, so hard to pick a favorite! I love baking and decorating, so any excuse for those activities is a good one. Being vegetarian, I will say my favorite food holiday is Shavuot – mmm dairy meal with desserts made with real butter, cream and eggs!
Thank you Andy and Robin for the Advent drawing!
My favorite holiday is Christmas and my favorite tradition is making hot chocolate and putting on Christmas carols while the kids decorate our old silver tree. It is quite the ugly tree that is magically transformed into a beauty after it is done up. Merry Christmas Robin and Andy!
Thank you, Robin and Andy, for this lovely contest which feels a bit like a holiday tradition of its own. 🙂
My favorite holiday traditions remain to be seen as our family is undergoing a difficult change right now, but any time I get to spend with my kids, having fun and making memories is a favorite. I’m very much looking forward to creating new ones this year since the little one is old enough to really get into the celebrations this year even if she doesn’t quite grasp the meaning behind them yet.
I’m so glad this contest is back! My favorite holiday tradition is putting up all the decorations every year. Everything I’ve got has sentimental meaning for me – ornaments given by a friend or relative, or bought somewhere when I was very happy, and so on – so getting the box up from the basement and taking out each ornament or decoration is like a journey through all of my happiest memories. Then I get to sit in my living room and enjoy them every day until Christmas!
Halloween is by far my preferred Holiday. Children going around from door to door meeting new people and having a good time, while wearing different costumes and getting candy! What could be better? (And I LOVE the Autumn smells :-))
Definitely eating Christmas Eve dinner with my family. All the 12 delightfull dishes, fish, borsch, dumplings, salats. I like the atmosphere of this moment. Quite, focused, smelly and tasty.
Christmas Eve eggnog – spiked with rum, of course! And carols on the turntable (or these days, CD player). Thanks for the draw – I’d love to try Vanilla Flash!
On Christmas Eve we like to go tropical (even in the snowy N.E. US) by putting on our reggae Christmas album. We make some pasteles and drink coquitos and decorate the tree.
I drive 1200 miles to my family’s place in the tip of north Idaho each Dec. for Christmas. My 104 pound bernese mountain dogs hates the trip. My favorite part is when we get there and she gets her first whiff of real snow. She becomes the happiest, silliest dog even in her old age. It is of course great to be with family, but her and the snow are pure joy to watch. The tradition the last several years is to call the house about5 minutes before we get there so they are outside. Then at the end of their drive I stop and let her out. She runs like she is a whole new dog, Then she face plants in the snow and shakes her head. I call them puppy angles instead of snow angels because her ears leave marks like wings. If there were a perfume that smelled like her fresh fur and snow I would but it. 🙂
I love to bake Christmas cookies with my 3 kids all month long! We give dozens away to friends and family, and eat quite a few too….. 🙂
Still love Thanksgiving best. It used to be a lot less commercial, though.
What a fun draw! My favorite tradition involves a tiny Christmas tree my mom made me years ago, when I was a (in her view) lonely single girl living in a tiny studio apartment with no room for a “real” tree. My little Christmas tree is about 8 inches tall, and is decorated with pearl garlands and tiny red stars and gold ornaments, and it’s mounted on a disc of styrofoam into which Mom stuck a tiny pair of skis (and ski poles!), flanked by a pair of boots, a teddy bear, a little red wagon, a choochoo train, and several tiny wrapped packages, one of which is in brown paper as if shipped from a far-off sender, and even has a tiny postage stamp on it. I love that little tree.
Hello!
My favorite tradition is the christmas tree decorating with my family.
Everything about Christmas makes me fall in love with it. I love decorating the tree, house, and so on. Thanks!
I have two favorite traditions. The first is that I love spending Black Friday up in Apple Hill, CA, walking around gorgeous Christmas tree farms, eating hot cider donuts, and watching my daughter ride the ponies. Sure beats the shopping crowds!
The second is that we always watch old Disney villain scenes while carving pumpkin, roasting seeds, and drinking hot cider.
My favorite holiday tradition is giving something extra to my three favorite charities–the House of Ruth (battered women shelter), the Maryland Food Bank and St. Jude. I try to give two or three times a year at least–two of the times are always around the Fourth of July and Christmas time. Last year we adopted a family (a single mother and her three children) and that was also very fulfilling.
Thank you for this draw! My favourite holiday tradition is Christmas decorating, I love the lighting and the wonderful smell of christmas tree.
My favorite tradition is the “Orphan Thanksgiving” that my friends host every year — a Thanksgiving dinner open to anyone who is unable to be with their family on the holiday.
My favorite holiday tradition is Christmas Eve with my immediate family. Starting sometime in the 80s, we began ordering chinese takeout, so no one had to get stressed about cooking. We could exchange gifts, relax and watch Christmas movies together. Bliss!
Thank you for the chance to win. My favorite holiday tradition is eating latkes with sour cream and applesauce!
My favourite tradition for the upcoming holiday is baking home made cookies and drinking some spiced wine plus enjoying a nice movie while sitting in my very warm and cozy bed.
Thanks!!!
Ist day of advent. Time to release the festive weasels!
Ringing in the New Year with my partner is my favorite tradition.
We lived overseas for several years and were very fortunate to experience different holiday traditions. Different countries, different religions, different holidays — all were exciting. So my favorite tradition is taking an opportunity to learn about what other people do to celebrate their traditions.
Indulged in new fragrances bought or given as Christmas gifts. Also sharing the joy to the less fortunate ones by donating useful and daily necessities to them every year during the festive seasons. “Joy to the world”
my fave holiday is new years eve. the chance for a new beginning!!! thanks so very much for the draw
I think I’m too late but wanted to post anyway.
I adore Christmas, I got that from my mom who also loved it. I’m quite lavish with the tree and the food but the mood is laid back. We hang out, eat delicious things, share memories and laugh. A lot!
Am I too late?! I hope not because the prize you are generously offering would be a valued gift.
My favorite holiday tradition now is Christmas Eve, when my youngest son and his family come for an early finger foods buffet and my grandchildren open an early gift. It is quiet, intimate, and genuinely merry.
Thank you for sharing and encouraging it in us.
My favourite holyday is whenever I get the chance to reach La Maddalena island, in the Mediterranea: sea and sunshine kiss each other by breathing wind scented with spontaneous helicrysum…
My favorite tradition is getting the Christmas tree. My family used to go up to the mountains and cut a tree down and then we’d decorate. My siblings and I always put up old ornaments that we made as kids (macaroni art sprayed gold) and ornaments that had seen better years ( little drummer boy with one arm). Even though I rarely get to decorate a tree with my family any more, I still enjoy the tree, and cut one down when/where possible.
Thanks for the giveaway!
My favorite holiday had always been Thanksgiving because I love to cook and it was always such a great lazy rest of the day! Now that i have kids, it’s really Christmas because they are so much fun!
I have several favorite holiday traditions. The one I’m missing the most this year is decorating for Christmas. We usually get the house nicely festive, then have an evening of “kitty torture”, where the furrballs get to dress up in antlers and santa hats for photo taking, then get extra treats. We aren’t going to be home enough to justify full-on decorations (and the little cats are demons that can’t be trusted with a tree), but I may put up a mini tree with soft, kitten-proof ornaments.
I am so happy to participate! I hope I will be lucky 🙂
My favourite holiday is Christmas, because it is the time when I feel closer to my family and friends and I think more about my soul, trying to be a better person.
My favourite tradition is going to the church with my family.
My favorite holiday is Christmas by far. There is this impossible task of having a beautiful white Christmas. Every year I wait, checking the weather, hoping and praying that we have 3-4 inches on the ground and a gentle white dusting on the 24th at night. Then we light the fireplace, get hot chocolate and open presents.
Thank you for the giveaway drawing!
My favorite holiday tradition is binging on holiday themed movies for whichever big holiday is upon us. It’s worth mentioning that many of the movies end up being horror movies. My boyfriend and I are big horror fans, so we delight in trying to find new holiday centered horror movies each year. Of course, this is easy for Halloween. Some faves for Christmas are Black Christmas and Silent Night, Deadly Night. The new Krampus movie looks to be right up my alley.
My favorite traditions are the ones that allow me to enjoy quiet time and delicious treats with my parents. Baking pies together on Christmas Eve or the day before Thanksgiving, sitting down to eat together and having hot tea afterwards, lazing around in the backyard on the Fourth of July with a beer and a hefty covering of insect repellent while Mom and Dad cook hamburgers on our pint-sized hibachi grill.
My grandmother and mother always made pizzelles for Christmas, so I carried on the tradition and go into production usually right after Thanksgiving. This year, both my daughter and I were sick, so I will start this weekend. I make about 12 dozen every year. We also listen to Christmas music when putting up the tree and baking. This year my daughter-in-law is having Christmas dinner, so that will be nice and I get to play with my little grandson and granddaughter instead of cooking!!!!
Thanks for the giveaway!
I’m thinking that Tauer’s advent calendar may be my only holiday tradition! 😮 But, I do love the lights that go up in December, and the trees and the ornaments… What can I say, I’m a sucker 😀
Christmas Eve—singing carols with family –drinking hot cider. The best times ever especially if you are lucky enough to have it snow!
My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. For me, it represents the family sitting down, giving thanks for all that we have, for each other, & sharing a meal.
Thank you for this opportunity & for your generousity!
Thanks for the drawing…excited. I live in the US
My favorite holiday tradition is putting up my orange lights for Halloween. Although now, with the advent of LEDs in such pretty colors, it’s quickly becoming a favorite tradition to put up bright pink and blue-white lights on the porch for Christmas!
Lots of nice comments on the Tauerville Flash fragrances, and this is a nice way for someone to experience that.
I love decorating the house with winter blooming jasmine, amaryllis, and paperweights to celebrate Christmas and the New Year. The extravagant blooms and intoxicating fragrances are all the more lovely when light is scarce and there is snow outside.
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Thank you for the draw!
My favorite tradition is cooking my mother’s sweet and sour ribs for Christmas dinner.
Thanks!
New Year at the beach on the Texas Gulf Coast — grey and misty and quiet, with 360 degree fireworks at night, then peace again.
My favorite tradition is rummaging around my yard with my four children the weekend after Thanksgiving and collecting evergreens and berries to make a giant wreath for our front door. This year’s juniper trees were positively festooned with berries so the wreath came out so pretty this year.
My favorite holiday tradition is going to see Love Actually at Alamo Drafthouse (movie theater chain that serves food and drink) with my husband. It’s one of my favorite movies, and we’ve done it since our first Christmas together.
My favorite holiday is of course Christmas. New Year is good too!!! Decorating Christmas tree is the funniest part. Our kids still believe in Santa Claus, that is so nice!
My favorite holiday tradition is getting together with family and friends for Christmas and having a nice meal, with the exchange of presents before or after.
Thank you, Andy, for having this drawing and thank you, Robin, for hosting the draw.
The neighborhood where my parents live lines the streets with luminaries on Christmas Eve. It is always a hassle to get them made and ready, but always so worth it.
Thank you for the giveaway and thank you Andy for the encouragement to consider the needs of charities!
My favorite holiday is Christmas so my favorite traditions are on Christmas Eve. Some of them are fun and some sad. We go to Christmas Eve service at church, have Christmassy party appetizers, and stay over at my parents’ house so we don’t have to travel on the morning of. We usually stay up late watching cheesy holiday movies, and in the morning we have a boozy fruit and glazed Christmas bread wreath for brunch that I make the morning of Christmas Eve. The gift giving begins and then stuff ourselves on Christmas dinner. 🙂
My sad tradition is buying a Hallmark remembrance ornament every December now for my baby son who passed away. Most families buy an heirloom ornament for their children every year to start a collection. This will be my third Christmas to buy a remembrance/sympathy ornament for my only child so far.
My favorite holiday tradition was stringing cranberries and popcorn onto long threads to hang on the Christmas tree. My brothers and I always had a huge laugh sneaking bites of the popcorn and sticking each other with the needles.
Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate New Year’s Eve (and Day) more and more. The opportunity to reflect on the past year and think about the coming one, both alone and with friends and family — the latter over drinks while waiting for midnight on New Year’s Eve and at various parties, some of them football-related, on New Year’s Day — feels very important to middle-aged me.
Thank you, Andy, for your generosity! And thanks, NST, for hosting this draw!
thank you for the draw. my favorite holiday rituals are listening to christmas music favorites while cooking or decorating the tree, and drinking wassail before heading out for a night of caroling. years ago, you needed the wassail buzz to brave extremely cold weather. but nowadays, the nights are plenty warm (which is no comfort, frankly). happy december!
My favorite holiday tradition is the lighting of candles during this, the darkest part of the year. Light comes, and the darkness can never extinguish it. You may use my email address related to my account.
Thanks!
There are lots of Christmas traditions I enjoy, but I actually would love to experience Christmas at least once in the Southern Hemisphere, where we could swim and picnic on the beach on the big day! (Can you tell I’m not a cold weather person?) Thank you for the draw, and for the reminder to do things a little differently once in a while!
My favorite tradition are fragrant candles…from Glade to Diptyque. 🙂
Christmas is and will always be my favorite holiday! My parents made sure that my brother and I always had the best Christmas. We were so blessed. I love everything there is about Christmas!
Thanks for the drawing! 🙂
My favorite holiday tradition is the breaking of the oplatki wafers just before our traditional Polish Christmas Eve supper. The wafer is flat and thin and made of unleavened wheat and embossed with religious Christmas images. Everyone breaks off a piece and, beginning with the eldest member of the family (which always seems to be Grandma – Busia in Polish), exchanges a tiny piece of their wafer with all family members, exchanging hugs, kisses, and holiday wishes. The oplatki symbolizes the unity of family and is the most ancient tradition in my heritage. It wouldn’t be Christmas without it!
One of my favorite holiday traditions is that we always have homemade cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning breakfast. Thanks Andy!
Thank you, Andy, for your generosity! And thanks, NST, for hosting this draw!
Once upon a time I had a crush on a fellow university student and frantically tried to find ways to connect and stay in touch. One was to “borrow” some rhum from him to make a traditional English Christmas fruitcake. It was an ongoing conversation topic for several weeks until I finally got that deciliter needed. In return he got one of the two cakes to take home for Christmas.
That was 33 years ago. We eventually became a couple and are a couple still. And I make the Christmas fruitcake every year from the same old recipe.
This is my favorite time of the year! I was waiting for Andy’s calendar!! I hope I get to make some traditional Greek Christmas sweets like melomakarona! Let the baking begin!
My favorite holiday tradition is a Polish one from my mother’s side of the family. On Christmas eve we have dinner together and each person gets a wafer called oplatec. You take turns sharing your wafer with the other people, and as each person breaks off a piece of your wafer, you make a wish for them for the coming year. I always find it really stressful to try to think of the right thing, but I can’t imagine Christmas without it.
Two favourite traditions: the annual decorating of the house and Christmas morning. The latter involves my younger sister (she is an adult though – 29 years old) unceremoniously jumping on me to wake me up so that we can start opening presents. This tradition happens every year and persists despite our age and her being married now. But I love it!
I own Tauer Rose Flash in the rollerball and it is delightful! So excited for the advent draws this year.
What a delight to read all of these touching holiday memories!
Of my many wonderful memories, I would pick going out Christmas Caroling during the Christmas season! A large group of us, of varying ages, would gather and visit members of our parish, singing beautiful Ukrainian Christmas Carols. Sometimes there would be a group as large as 20 people and we were like a visiting chorus! The parishioners greeted us with joyful anticipation and treated us with generous delights from their table! It was so wonderful to get a glimpse of Christmas celebrations in each of the homes, from the large families with so many children to the widowed elderly who were alone. For the lonely elderly, I think we made their Christmas so special, as we often brought special treats for them in addition to singing their favorite carols. Just writing about this brings tears to my eyes of one particular elderly couple who was so touched by our visit. My Christmas memories are filled with the beauty of fresh fallen snow and Christmas lights, but it is the sound of the Ukrainian Christmas Carols and the love and joy that they brought to each household that stands out among them all.
Christmas isn’t Christmas without most of the following: filberts, fizzy wine or whiskey sours, tourtière, panettone, Handel’s Messiah or Charlie Brown Christmas, the movie Metropolitan or the Grinch TV show.
Favourite holiday is Christmas, most especially Christmas Eve. In earlier years when my parents were still alive it meant a traditional Ukrainian Christmas Eve dinner. Now that there are only we four siblings left, it is a time to briefly set aside Christmas in order to celebrate my eldest sister’s birthday.
And each year I buy a new long flannel nightgown in memory of one of mother’s yearly Christmas gifts to me.
Thank you Andy and Robin.
All of the different annual holiday food and beverages are my favourite traditions. Thanks for the draw Robin and Andy.
Peace and Joy for Everyone!
My favourite holiday tradition is finishing decorating the Christmas tree with a Santa/bell bauble I’ve had since I was a kid.
My favorite Christmas traditions is preparing our typical dishes for dinner – Christmas cabbage soup and sweet dumplings with poppy seeds. And there is another tradition which I would like to renew in next years – to sing carols in front door of friends an relatives. Thanks. Lubka
My favourite tradition is making soap bubbles on birthdays 🙂
I like lighting the Advent wreath, which I don’t do at home because my insane cats don’t stay away from candles. The Christmas tree goes up on Christmas Eve.
Thanks to Andy and Robin.
My favourite tradition is the preparation of food ahead of Christmas day – I just love the intermingling smells of citrus, cranberries, sage and spices that come from the kitchen. Also love the 2 weeks off work, allowing some leisurely time to enjoy one or two glasses of fizz with friends and family – especially at Hogmany! Thank you for the opportunity to take part in the draw!
The spring holidays are my favorite: Passover-Easter-Ostara. I love them for their celebrations of renewal and rebirth after the long winter. My family is not religious, but our favorite spring ritual is to go for a hike in the woods on Easter morning. Sometimes there is still snow on the ground and sometimes it’s warm and sunny. But no matter the weather, the signs and smells of spring (even if we have to search hard to find them) make me feel hopeful and joyous.
Me and my mum, or another family member go for a walk during cold and crispy days of Christmas, around the streets and look at Christmas decorations, in the windows, outside houses, the streets. This has rooted from the tradition that we used to count how many decorated trees inside peoples windows we saw. As I child I loved peeking in peoples rooms and was fascinated by the lit Christmas trees. I still count as we pass in the car from one village to another one on a Christmas eve before we go to visit grandparents for a dinner.
Thank you for the drawing, I live in the US.
My favorite holiday is Veteran’s day. It allows us to honor the people that have sacrificed the most.
I love the candlelighting and cooking aspects of hannukah but truly enjoy being a part of all versions of friends+family+food+ritual.
My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. It’s all the family, food, and good times of Christmas without the stress of gifts and shopping and crowds. I love that it’s about gratitude. Thank you for the draw. I’m in the US.
This may be the first time in years that I am unemployed for the holidays, I will try to make the best of it, and count my blessings!
Favorite tradition for any boliday is to eat out at a favorite diner. Everyone picks their own, everyone is happy, no stress over what to cook, no clean up required!
Thanks for the generous draw!
My favorite holiday is New Year’s Day. My husband and I have hosted an open house each New Year’s Day for the past 25 years. We have so much fun greeting our friends and family and toasting to the new year.
Thanks so much for the draw!
I love counting down the days to a holiday or special event. We have a chalkboard calendar for counting down and crossing off the days to Christmas each year. My children are teens, but they still enjoy opening the doors on a candy advent calendar each December. This year the advent calendars were bought at Trader Joe’s and contain Valrhona chocolates. I wonder if Trader Joe’s will ever sell fragrance . . . their pomegranate body butter smells nice.
I love New Year’s Eve! I have a special little party (very intimate) with special tasty treats and a selection of new cocktails to try. Since we stay at home, we never have to worry about drinking and driving.
thank you for the opportunity to win one of Andy’s lovely fragrances.
Nothing beats Thanksgiving. The best food of the year plus Football!?!? The family is ok too.
My favorite holiday tradition is walking the neighbourhoods at Christmastime to look at all the pretty lights. So enchanting!
Christmas music is one of my favorite things. I have an extensive playlist for the holidays and, much to my husband’s dismay, I’ve been known to play Christmas songs in the summer. I look forward to December all year because nobody can complain about my Christmas music then! Thanks for the drawing.
My favorite holiday is Easter because it announces the summer, my favorite season and it is the time when my daughter was born. Thanks for the giveaway.
I enjoy every holiday when there is time for family gatherings. The most time we spend together is the time around christmas. So the christmas holiday is my favorit. Is also a good time for gathering random reactions and comments to my “weird” perfume hobby 😉
My favorite was growing up and leaving out our stockings for St. Nicholas. Now, I really enjoy making mulled wine for my family on Christmas.
Somehow I’ve never been a fan of holidays. But then I moved to the US and started celebrating thanksgiving with other expats every year: everything is low key, just friends who happen not to have to visit their family getting together for a nice evening. It feels like taking a holiday out of its box – no obligations, just friends getting together. I guess I don’t like boxes – except Andy’s pentagonal boxes, those are really really nice. 😀
My favourite holiday is Christmas
My favorite holiday tradition is decorating the Christmas tree. As the oldest child it was my job to place the angel atop the tree at the end. My dad would always lift me up so I could reach high enough. My dad is in his mid 60s now, I weigh 150 or so pounds…and he still tries to life me up every year. It has always been so sweet. Now it’s sweet and hilarious. And it will no doubt send us all to the emergency room someday.
Thanks for the draw!
Yay for Advent!
My favorite traditions revolve around planning and preparing beautiful meals to share with the ones I love–Thanksgiving turkey or perhaps mussels for Christmas!
Whatever the holiday or other celebratory event, for me it’s largely about the food! I don’t always get to visit my family during the holidays, so I’ve often started new traditions on my own with friends who are also geographically orphaned. Thankfully, most of my friends are as food-oriented as I am, and we generally stuff ourselves silly, then lay around, either watching a movie or playing a game. Most recently, we’ve been having fun with Cards Against Humanity, which generates a lot of laughter and leaves us all aghast at the impropriety of responses.
My favorite holiday tradition is spending time with my family during Christmas. It is one of the few times we are together!
My favourite tradition is the Christmas markets in Germany — and this year, for once, I get to experience them, thanks to a sabbatical! Last weekend we headed out to some of the markets in the local small towns, which only happen for a weekend and are quite magical at night, with candlelight and shops in people’s ancient stone cellars, or Advent calendars in town windows.
Wow, thanks for the wonderful prize draw! I guess Christmas is my favorite holiday, because I really need something to look forward to during the dark days of winter. I like to spend quiet time during the holidays, just sitting on the couch and listening to my favorite Christmas albums or watching holiday movies – mostly old classics. I also enjoy driving around the city at night to find the best light displays.
I love Easter time in the UK when the skies are normally very blue , there are some brisk winds and everything is starting to grow , there is an expectation of something good around the corner……..
My favourite holiday tradition for some years now starts each October and is creating a perfume for my mum, a room fragrance for my brother and some scented bathing oils for some good friends. It’s almost tradition now with everyone expecting their fragrances.
Thanks for this opportunity! Halloween for me, my beloved Mom, (R.I.P.) made us the best costumes in the neighborhood! We always were the envy of the other kids! So much so that they would fight over who got to borrow our “last year’s” costumes!!! 🙂
My favorite was making the fruitcake for Christmas. My grandmother and I would spend a day after Thanksgiving making it. We’d snack on the batter. Argue about what fruit should be in it- she liked the weird green and yellow stuff, I preferred raisins, dates, and cherries. And we poured ourselves bourbon and cokes the whole time. Cause the cake didn’t need the entire bottle. And then we spent the next month unwrapping and pulling the cake out of its aging cabinet, spritz it with more bourbon.
Then we had fruitcake at Christmas. And it was good.
Thank you for the giveaway. I love my Christmas dinner tradition. I always get together with the family and we would cook chicken and mashed potatoes. Nothing too exciting but It’s always nice to get together and catch up with everyone.
I love Christmas because of the warmth of having my family with me. My favourite tradition must be sitting together for Christmas lunch and enjoying each other’s company.
Still waiting for my first white Christmas!
Thanks for the draw and bravo for changing a bit the rules, Andy( yes, this is and should always be a time for charity)- I always loved the Christmas evenings with friends-when I was younger
Ever since my girls were toddlers I’ve always given them a Christmas stocking with small gifts, which they were allowed to open on Christmas Eve, once they were tucked up in bed.
Contrary to expectations, once they’d received this they used to go off to sleep without any of the usual Christmas Eve hyper-excited, can’t settle down sort of problems.
I still make them up a stocking now & they’re both approaching 30!
Thanks for the draw Andy. My favorite holiday would probably be Thanksgiving. It’s a great time to spend with family, eat too much, and most importantly a day set aside to reflect on what we are thankful for.
My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving, but my parents aren’t really big on traditions. As such, I just love having pumpkin pie and turkey on this day, and gathering with friends and family.
I love the stories of Christmas. Especially the story of Christ’s birth. The telling of and thoughts about have always been quite a focus for my family. Thanks for doing the draw, Andy!
My favorite holiday tradion — no matter what holiday — would have to be baking. Thanks for the chance to win!
My favorite tradition is at thanksgiving when we go around the table and each person tells something from the year that they are grateful fir ir hapoy about. Thanks!
Visiting my parents, opening gifts in the morning, cooking Christmas dinner with my mom, drinking wine by the fire, the whole shebang. 🙂
My favorite holiday tradition actually usually occurs on Black Friday when my sister and I go to the World Market to pick up Advent calendars for her grown sons. She has done this all their lives, and now picks them up for a wife, children and girlfriends. We always pick up màrzipan for ourselves, since it reminds us of our childhood in Germany. That is where we first got our advent calendars, filled with chocolate.
Thanks Robin and Andy for this generous draw. My favorite holiday tradition is just a small one…when we gather to open our gifts on Christmas morning, we first take down our stockings from the fireplace and sort through those small treasures. Full of practical, funny or sweet treats it is always my favorite discovery of the day. Hope all of you enjoy peace and love with family and friends.
Every year our family goes to the Nutcracker ballet a couple of days before Christmas. I think they’ll get tired of it, but they don’t! It is preceded by fondue with champagne, now that the kids are young adults! Thanks for the draw.
Sadly I sometimes feel numb to holidays since I usually work them. I do always make time for a white elephant party with my friends before new year’s. It’s always a wonderful time. I always pride myself in finding the most bizarre gifts. One year in Austin I found this cross stitch of cat eyes: five differently colored cats but only focused on the eyes. It was very strange. ????
My favorite holiday tradition is making gingerbread houses with my family. Some years it’s just the family. Other years we invite friends to join us. It’s always fun to see how the houses and their landscaping turn out. One year my son undid his house and re-glued it to make a football stadium. Thank you and Andy for the give away.
My favorite holiday tradition is baking the lemon sponge cake that my great grandmother used to make for Passover. It takes a lot of folding to mix just right and is something that connects the generations. Bonus points for mixing in food coloring so that the inside has a secret rainbow!
Many thanks for the draw 🙂
Having dinner with the family on Christmas Eve is my favorite tradition. We have a nice dinner and a champagne toast.
happy holidays to all!