This giveaway closed on on Wednesday, December 1 at 6pm EST. Please scroll to the end of this post to view the winners’ information and for a description of the selection process. Thank you all for your participation, and have a great week!
I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the treetops glisten and children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow.
~Irving Berlin 1942
What are your favorite memories of Christmas?
Do you remember the wonder and excitement you felt as a child at the thought of Santa Claus’s impending arrival each year? I do. I clearly remember lying awake in bed listening for and certain I could hear the hoofs of his reindeer on our roof on Christmas night.
One of the joys of being a new parent is experiencing that wonder and excitement all over again through the eyes of our children. My little girl will be nearly 2 and a half this Christmas and has been asking me to sing “Santy Caws” songs during our story time before bed.
Which leads me to the point of this blog… and yes I have one. I’ve discovered a really cool service that I think you will like… and more importantly I think you’re kids will LOVE. Plus I’m going to give away a free custom “Letter from the Elves” for two lucky readers.
The letters from scnorthpole.com are printed on high quality holiday stationary, carefully personalized for each child, and are lightly humorous and in good taste (of course). They have several types of letters that they will lovingly customize for your wee ones.
The two I’m giving away are their “Encouragement Letters from the Elves”. Their elves will craft a lovely, kind letter of encouragement to remind your child that Santa hasn’t made the final version of the Naughty and Nice Lists. 😉 I’ve seen one and they are really sweet.
You provide them information about your child via a short questionnaire, including what they want most for Christmas, some of their accomplishments you want acknowledged, and also anything you’d like your child encouraged to do better. The elves take it from there.
The personalized letters are written with light humor, a bit of whimsy, and a lot of heart by two moms who enjoy Christmas and inspiring the magic of the season. I should note that all letters come stamped with a special North Pole stamp Santa gave them to use!
It’s super easy to enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment sharing a favorite Christmas memory. It could be one from your childhood or more recent. Even if you don’t care about winning, leave your memory. There’s something magical in shared happiness.
Increase your chances of winning (leave a comment for each):
- Visit scnorthpole.com and tell me the name of one of their free “Reindeer Games”
- Follow A Daddy Blog on Google Friend Connect
- “Like” A Daddy Blog on Facebook (2 extra entries)
- Follow aDaddyBlog on Twitter
- Tweet this giveaway: “Naughty or Nice? @aDaddyBlog #Giveaway straight from the North Pole to your child ==> http://bit.ly/SantasElves” (you may tweet this once a day through December 1 for an additional 2 entries each time)
- Blog about this giveaway and leave a link to your post (3 extra entries)
- Grab my button (below to the right) and add it to your page (3 extra entries)
- Subscribe to adaddyblog.com (2 extra entries)
This giveaway will end on Wednesday, December 1 at 6pm EST. It is open to all mailing addresses in the US and Canada. A winner will be chosen using random.org, and will be contacted with the email they provide. They will have 48 hours to respond before a new winner is chosen. The letter are provided by scnorthpole.com and have a retail value of $5.95 US each. As a disclosure: I’m being provided one letter value $5.95 for my daughter. Good luck to everyone!
A Daddy Blog is pleased to congratulate our winners: L.Elaina Johnson, author of A Writter’s Den, and also Amanda Broadfoot author of Life is a Spectrum. The winners were selected at random using random.org which offers true random numbers to anyone on the Internet. The randomness comes from atmospheric noise, which for many purposes is better than the pseudo-random number algorithms typically used in computer programs. The service has existed since 1998 and was built and is being operated by Mads Haahr of the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin in Ireland.
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i’ve never heard of this company before! we don’t do Santa in our home but i will pass along the giveaway to my friends who do 🙂 thanks!
Author
That was really sweet of you, Eryn. The “company” is a couple of very nice moms (the elves)… which is why I was willing to do what will likely be my last giveaway. I can understand not wanting to take the focus away from the true meaning of the season in your home. Thanks for tweeting this anyway. You’re a dear.
What a sweet idea! I love that the letters are customizable to each child! What a sweet keepsake:)
Author
They shared a sample letter with me or I’d not have done the giveaway. The customized letters are really whimsical and cute.
I tweeted about this here:https://twitter.com/#!/milkandcuddles/status/6750244414955520
Author
Thanks so much for tweeting this, Shannon. The two mom’s who run this business will be thrilled. They are really nice.
Didnt know the forum rules allowed such brilialnt posts.
One of my favorite memories is my first Christmas being married- it was so sweet to celebrate with my new family- my husband:)
Author
Awww… now that is a sweet memory. Christmas is wonderfully different when you are married, and doubly so when you have kids. 🙂
We don’t do Santa either but I will tweet to get the word out!
My favorite Christmas memories are of choosing and decorating our live tree! I haven’t had a live tree since childhood (due to laziness and cats) but it was always so special to cut down our own tree and decorate it around December 1st. Maybe I’ll resurrect the tradition for Sweet T when she’s old enough to know the difference.
Author
Yes, cats can make a Christmas tree a bit of a challenge. Those hanging ornaments are just too darned tempting. Thanks so much for tweeting this, even though you don’t do Santa, Jennifer. Have a great week!
I have cats too, so I don’t put tinsel on the tree cause they might eat it and oh no…. and just about all my decor is not breakable. (Kids too!) Anything that is breakable goes up high! 🙂
Author
Good tip for anyone with a cat… and about any glass ornaments and such around kids. Up high it is. Thanks for sharing!
What a lovely idea! Letters from Santa’s elves! How sweet!
Author
I’ve seen a sample and the two moms (elves) that own this business do a great job. They are really cute and whimsical. I know kids will love them. They also have letters from the big guy himself, of course.
What a cool give-a-way! Please do not enter me in your contest, I don’t have any little ones, mine is 17.
I remember when I was little we had a phone number we could call and it updated us about the activity going on at the North Pole. It was such an exciting time for my family. Things are certainly different, but the memories will remain dear to me.
Chaplain Donna
Author
THANK YOU so much for sharing your memory. That takes me back. I’d forgotten about the phone number! They are such sweet memories aren’t they. I believe NORAD (as part of a PR effort years ago) still has a Santa Tracker you can view online at noradsanta.org. Have a great Thanksgiving!
One of my favorite memories was going to look at Christmas lights in the back of my dad’s pick-up truck, all covered in blankets.. loved that.
Author
Oh… that’s a great one! Must have been so fun. I may just have to get a big Texas pickup so we can do that with our wee one!
My favorite Christmas memories were when I was a kid. When my brother, sister & I ran out to see the stockings and the presents under the tree. Just a very exciting time when you’re a kid. And I loved watching A Charlie Brown Christmas! Now all the excitement is in watching my grandson and how much joy he finds in all the Christmas activities we do together!
Author
My brother and I used to sneak out in the early morning and peek for just a couple of seconds and then ran back to our room before anyone caught us. Yeah, I’m really looking forward to sharing it with our two year old this year. That Charlie Brown Christmas special was one of my favorite’s too. I loved how he picked the poor scrawny tree and then they all decorate it and make it beautiful.
Super cute idea! One of my co-workers does something called ‘elf on a shelf’,, which is basically an elf that ‘moves’ to different locations in the house, and watches when the kids are behaving and then reports to Santa overnite and then returns the next morning (which is why the elf moves) but my friends’ kids HUNT that elf down each morning to talk to it (or like apologize for getting out of bed three times hahhA!).
ps if I win give the prize to the person who posted before me!:)
Author
Yeah, they sell those “Elf on a Shelf” kits at Barnes and Noble (and such) now. My mom still has some of the original elves they used to sell in the 50’s (like in the picture above). I think that’s a cute idea. Thanks so much for dropping by. Hope you have a great Thanksgiving. 😉
I still remember vividly the Christmas my dad unveiled the fact that he had renovated the attic of our house into a playroom for myself, my sister and my little brother, complete with a dollhouse build into the wall! It was just the BEST. I still don’t know how he managed to keep it a secret all those weeks he was working on it — shows how oblivious we were to our hard-working dad!
So glad you stopped by my blog at LifeIsASpectrum.com and I’m looking forward to reading more…
(LOVED your caption, by the way 🙂
Author
What an amazing gift from your dad. Seriously, that is so very cool. My wife’s dad drove to Texas from Georgia and built and amazing play house in our back yard for our little girl… complete with painted sheet-rock, insulation, electrical wiring and even air-conditioning (necessary in Texas). Gifts of that sort are so special. Have a very safe and Happy Thanksgiving.
The last few years have been absolutely awesome! Its so difficult to pick just one, but since I have to pick one I’ll go with this one:
In 2006 my son, who was just 4 years old at the time asked for a baby brother or sister for Christmas – my husband had a medical operation go wrong, left him sterile many years before. So we had to persuade him to ask Santa for something else for Christmas then we gave him a watered down version of how babies are made, how daddy is ‘broken’, and that there was a super slim chance of him being able to have baby brothers and sisters, but that when we bought our own house and were no longer living in an apartment we would do what we could to take in kids who did not have mommies and daddies so he could have brothers and sisters that way. He was GREAT with that. Mid-April co-workers of mine were harassing me about being pregnant, so I took a test to prove them wrong. My due date happened to be Dec. 22, 2007. Our daughter/his little sister was born on the first day of Christmas – the 13th.
….My husband and I have grown to be a little bit anxious when he asks for things for Christmas due to similar patterns.
2005 – he asked for his ‘Daddy Brian’ to come back, we’d met the year before, but had parted ways for a while, he was back in our lives, permanently, by Christmas 2006.
2006/7 – already mentioned.
2008 – he asked for snow, we ended up with an ice storm that year.
2009 – he again asked for snow…I was still picking tomatoes off my tomato plants at Thanksgiving – it started falling at around midnight of Christmas morning (I know this because I had JUST gotten the kids to sleep and had to go out and get the presents out of the van)…by the time the kids were up (around 7) there was 13 inches on the ground. We lived in NE Oklahoma at the time….kinda similar to Ft. Hood, Texas as far as snow chances goes….The snow stuck around for almost 6 weeks. In my almost 30 years of life I have NEVER known snow to stick around that area for six days, much less six weeks, and NEVER that much.
Author
Hi Stephi,
Wow… can we get him to wish for the winning lottery ticket this year? Joking aside, how wonderful to wish for (and against the odds) get a little sibling. That’s a lovely story. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was lovely, spending it with family in NY. have a great day!
p.s. You’re son has a great name… same as mine. 😉
Man I am winning this bad boy.
My favorite memory of Christmas is when I was 10 and got the original Atari. Man I can remember playing Pac Man ALL DAY LONG. I sat in front of the old big box wooden base tv and played Pac Man till my brain was filled with wakka wakka wakka.
Author
Good luck, Scott. It would go well with your Elfie on the shelf. Good memory. My brother bought me one of those 10 Atari games in a box setups a couple years ago that you hook up to the TV. Hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving!
Added your button to my blog.
Dad Bloggers in full effect
Author
Do you have a blog button? I’ve been meaning to start a page of
shameI mean fav’s.I liked A Daddys Blog on facebook with my fake repo man work facebook guy Dustin Wells. Sorry, its the only facebook I got
One of my favorite Christmas was when my inlaws came to town to visit us before the girls were born. See my extended family has a big Christmas, so my husband’s parents joined us. I never imagined having both of our parents together during the holidays. My husband was excited! Some of my family members even brought gift cards to give to my husband’s parents. My aunt, the host of the Christmas gatherings has since passed away after complications with cancer. She’s hosted Christmas my entire life as far as I can remember. So that last Christmas was also bitter sweet, but I have my memories of her and my mother in law still can’t stop talking about that beautiful Christmas.
Author
That’s a really nice albeit partly bittersweet memory. It’s great when all sides of a family can join in a celebration. We’ve had a few like that. The biggest drew people from both coasts to our home in Texas. That was cool. Both I and my wife lost one parent some years back now, and the holidays are the times that absence is most acutely felt. But it brings up great memories, too.
Here the Reindeer Game: “Christmas Soduku Puzzle”
I’m stalking you on Google Friend Connect!
I’m also stalking you on Facebook Daddy!
Author
Thanks for the entries. Good luck. Oh, and I’m stalking you back on all of the above as well.
Just sent my tweet about this awesome giveaway too!