Our Big, Fat Giveaway + BLACK FRIDAY
This {GiVeAWaY} is now ended. We will post the winner, as soon as we get verification. 
Well, Thanksgiving is tomorrow and, just as we’ve promised, we’re doing our “Big, Fat Giveaway”…our biggest one of the year, actually. This is a Giveaway in appreciation of our FACEBOOK FANS, so our only requirement is that if you’re not already one of our amazing fans, please consider becoming a fan of the TLC Inspirations Facebook Page. We’re only interested in acquiring true, long-term fans, and they will be well rewarded with handmade news, blog updates, deals, giveaways, and great finds. We promise we’ll make it worth your while.
Now, here’s the {BIG} part: YOU CHOOSE YOUR PRIZE!!!
Here’s a “sample” of items currently available in our store (prizes may be other than what’s shown here, as items sell and new items are listed)….
To enter, please post your favorite holiday memory from your childhood (in a “comment”, below). It need not be long, but something that sticks out in your mind as special time. We can’t wait to read all of the entries! A winner will be chosen at random, but whoever is chosen will have the unique prospect of choosing whatever they’d like from our store…old, new, expensive, whatever. It’s YOUR CHOICE. You can’t beat that with a stick!
If you’d like additional entries (up to five), please promote the giveaway online in any way you can and post a new comment (with link) for each promotion. Contest ends at noon, December 9th.
{BlaCk FriDaY}
Ok, now on to the money-saving. Black Friday officially starts at 12:01am, this Friday and our sale goes through 11:59pm Monday night. During this event, TLC Inspirations’ Handmade Gift and Accessories Shop will be MARKING DOWN most of our items, offering FREE worldwide shipping and FREE gift wrapping (upon request) on EVERYTHING in our store.
I think that qualifies as a pretty kickin’ sale, so leave all the other people to get up at 3am and head to the mall for not-so-killer deals and, instead, with slippers on and coffee in hand, click on over to TLC Inspirations and take advantage of some super savings. While you’re at it, check out many of the wonderful handmade items alive and well at Etsy. Many are participating in this weekend’s sale, so take your time and ease into the holidays with grace and style
When I first read this I thought, what am I going to put – after all the memories…which one stands out the most? It was when I was about 8 years old, maybe around 1984ish….It was a tough year for the family after mom and dad split up and mom was trying to pick up the pieces for my sister and I. She was working long hard days, and taking care of my sister and I. My sister is a couple of years older than I, and she did her best at her young age to also be the little mom, during those times that our mom had to work.
This was during the big Cabbage Patch Kid craze, and my sister and I both wanted Cabbage Patch dolls SO BAD! My mom wanted, equally, to give us what we wished for, though her financial struggles limited her. She decided to make us dolls and did her very best to copy cat the sought after Cabbage Patch doll…. My sister and I, being curious youngsters, did our yearly “snooping” and came upon the half-made dolls….My sister and I told each other that we would still act surprised when Christmas came around and we opened our gifts. That year, at Grandma’s familiar and comforting blue and green Christmas decorated living room, we opened our gifts with eyes way-too-wide in surprise…cameras caught the picture of girls that looked nearly spooked, they were SO surprised by the dolls!
I still laugh so hard every time I come across that super surprised Christmas picture. We grew up in a tight-knit family with very much love. This is just one of the many memories of love I have….the love of a mother, and the return love of her children…
The above sounds similar in the fact that my mother had divorced and she was working three jobs. She told us that we could not afford a real Christmas tree. We had a little ceramic tree that was about a foot tall and that was going to be our tree. I was about 11 and my sister was 14, we decided that we would take all of our money and go buy a real tree. We lived in the city and there was a tree lot near by. We walked down and told the man that we wanted a very cheap tree, but it had to be big. I don’t remember how much we paid, but it was a lot. Both my sister and I dragged it all the way home. When my Mom came home is way laying in the middle of our little living room – she could barely get in the door. I think that was the most beautiful tree we ever had!
The first year I had a Christams with a grandmother. My grandfathers wife was ..well anyways I had never met her and she was abusive to say the least from what I hear. But one year when I was about 4 years my grandfather met a wonderful woman by the name of Monique. We went to her house for christams and it was the first christmas that I actually remember. She went all out with the decorations the food, the people. It was really amazing.
Thankyou for such an amazing giveaway! For someone who has family spread all over the world and all over my own country, one of my best Christmas memories is from when I was 8 years old. All my dad’s siblings (and their families) came and stayed with us for a couple of weeks to have a family reunion and celebrate Christmas together. It was so much fun actually seeing my cousins in the flesh, although there were so many of us that it was pretty squashy! It was an amazing experience which we have, unfortunately, only been able to repeat a few times since.
What a generous giveaway! Hmmm, my favorite holiday memory…well, there are lots but here is one: My grandparents built the house the live in the year I was born (really not that long ago!). We spent every Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthday, etc there for as long as I could remember. When I was in college they bought a brand new stove right before Thanksgiving. We were lounging in the living room, playing cards and enjoying the smells coming from the kitchen of turkey, stuffing, pie and more, when we heard “oh no” from my grandmother. Her brand new stove couldn’t handle the Thanksgiving feast and had died. A quick call to the manufacturer told us it couldn’t be fixed and we were out of luck until the following week. Oh no! My ever resourceful grandmother took the turkey and everything else in the over, put it on her old wood burning stove, and cooked us one of the most delicious Thanksgiving meals I have ever had! (That happened again the next Thanksgiving, true story!)
My favorite holiday memory is when we were children my parents bought my sister one of those huge dancing rag dolls for Christmas and set her up in a chair for her to find. We crept downstairs and it was still pretty dark and I spotted the doll sitting in the chair but I thought it was my sister. I’m asking her what she is doing up and yelled for my mom and dad to tell them Barbara was already up sitting by herself and she won’t talk to me. It was just one of those memories that I was teased about for quite awhile and I still remember it. Thank you!
My favourite holiday memory was when we celebrated Christmas with my cpusins. We use to have dinner and then we sang carols walking alog the house, while my parents and my uncle and my aunt put the presents under a table where the Betlehem was showed. I remembered when my cousin , discovered the secret… He was the ñittle one and we thought all have finished, but not ! We decided go on ans it was this way during enough more years. now i hae two sons and magic was present again at home!!!
Thanks for the chance!Beautiful work!
cal_rubies at yahoo dot es
my favourite holiday memoery is going to holiday with my parents, it is unforgetable as we travel as family and have fun. I hope to do that again but sad to see parents not together.
blogged http://iluvcontest.blogspot.com/2009/11/choose-your-prize.html
A holiday memory that sticks out is the year I received parachute pants and a basketball goal for Christmas. Yes it was the eighties! lol
I retweeted.
http://twitter.com/kiddo47/status/6115300896
I facebooked it.
http://www.facebook.com/kiddo47
When I was 8, I loved anything to do with Indians. My favorite movie was Pocahantas (sorry if I just butchered the name) and my friends and I would play pretend that we were an Indian tribe using leather from my dress-up trunk and feathers. So, as would be expected, when Christmas came around all I wanted were things that had to do with Indians; dress up clothes, teepee, bow and arrow, and a doll. I wished and wished for a teepee most of all, somthing to be our home in the front yard when we where exploring the area hunting for buffalo. Christmas day came around and I was so excited that I couldn’t stay in bed. I woke up at 6, earlier than any other family member, and rushed in to my dads bedroom. He was able to delay me for a little while, but soon it was too much for me to bear.
I just realized that we didn’t share any of OUR fave holiday memories. One of mine is being at my Grandma’s house (blue and white lights all aglow) when Santa surprised us and visited. Now, I was skeptical of it being Santa Claus, but my younger sister was all smiles as Santa leaned over to give her a candy cane, and sprinkle her with some of low-pitched “ho ho ho’s”. Her and I had always been concerned about staying at Grandma’s house because we were afraid that Santa would never find us, lol. It turns out, he knew exactly where to look
I remember when I was 8 and got a nice vanity. I went downstairs and there it was. It was the best present I ever got. My daughter will be 8 in January and I plan on finding her a antique vanity for the holidays.
Nice shop and giveaway!
Juliea
http://www.gypsyjewels.blogspot.com
http://www.willowmoonspirit.etsy.com
I retweeted!
(gypsyjewels)
Hm…for some reason my first comment isn’t showing up but my last one is – so here it is again.
When I was 8 I came down the stairs to see a brass vanity next to the tree and I fell in love. It was the best present I ever got and I am planning on finding one for my almost 8 year old this holiday too.
Thanks again.
My favorite memory was when my sister and I discovered that Santa was not real. I’m not sure how old we were (pretty little), but I remember we noticed that the tags on the gifts were in our dad’s handwriting. We were comparing handwriting samples and when we confronted our dad, he told us that Santa didn’t have enough time to fill out the gift tags…but we didn’t fall for it.
When I was a child Christmas was all about family. All my Aunts and Uncles would come to our house with my cousins and we would have a like party with lots of singing.It was great fun!
My favorite holiday memory from childhood is when I used to bake christmas cookies for santa with my mom. We would then set them out with a glass of milk on the fireplace!
My best holiday ever was in fourth grade. My friends and I decided that we would donate all our Christmas and Chanukkah gifts that year to an orphanage. We also organized a pink paper heart sale (each heart could be sent to anyone in our school and we stapled a candy or chocolate to it – they sold like crazy) so we could buy more toys and milk. It was so amazing to give those kids our presents and see their happy faces. Its still one of our fondest memories and none of us minded that we were present-less that year in Christmas.
I blogged about this awesome giveaway in my new blog
Here’s the link:
http://internationalgiveaways.blogspot.com/2009/11/prize-from-inspire-wire.html
Ronit
internationalgiveaways[at]gmail[dot]com
http://internationalgiveaways.blogspot.com
what a nice giveaway! My favorite memory is getting a bicycle!
I was about 10, it was purple, it was great!
you have such cute stuf in your store!
a memory of mine: when i was 6 we came to live in israel {and i live in israel until this day} and that was the day before sukkot holiday. so i remember meeting all my moms family for the first time, not understanding hebrew and being a little shy…
This may seem silly, but I can always remember getting a Lifesavers “book” in my stocking every year when I was growing up. When I see them at walmart, or wherever, I get a warm feeling!
My favourite holiday memory is going down to the beach with my best friend and staying there all day from dawn to dusk. Sharon’s mum would always give us 40 cent so we could buy hot chips. Those were the days!
If I win, I think I would chose those beautiful Glass Heart Earings.
Thanks
caron.chester@gmail.com
is this contest open for worldwide?
I have a lot of favorite holiday memories ;D I still remember the good times we had when my family and my cousin’s family were having holiday out of town, we were like the families at the movie Home Alone, there were childrens scattered around and the big rush and all, it was so fun! Me and my cousins ended up breaking the hotel bed (oops!) ;p
i remember playing outside with my siblings, sledding down the middle of a (quiet, snowed-in) street, making snow forts and snowmen and snow angels and runnning around so much we got too hot to keep our coats on! and then heading in for dinner and cocoa, to a mom who was grateful we got all our wild out outside!
One christmas eve we wrote out the verses to the 12 days of christmas and cut them up, then each family member drew a line. we all sang our parts and videotaped the whole thing.
One of my fave memories was when I was 8 at a big holiday Christmas with all my cousins (lots of them). Santa made an appearance (it was obviously my uncle, who is asian also, dressed up in a rented costume)… and one of the little ones yelled out.. “Why is Santa Chinese?”… it was really funny.
My favorite holiday memory was when my family and I went for a trip in Cameron Highlands. My aunts and uncles brought their families along. It was like a big reunion and I loved it.
My favorite memory from my childhood was the time we used a tumbleweed as a tree because we didn’t have the gas to go drive out and cut down our own, it was fun making the paper ornament for it.
One of my favorite memories as a child was that my mom always made us our Christmas gifts. It was the year when cabbage patch dolls were all the rage. We were too poor to get them so my mom made us a version of the dolls. (there were four of us) At the time it didn’t register that she worked very hard on those dolls. I loved the doll and took very good care of her. I still have the doll and will give it to my daughter this year for Christmas.
One of the memories that stand out to me from my childhood was the year when i was about 5 years old and my brothers and i still believed in Santa and thought he was real. That year my parents went out of their way to make it a truly magical christmas for us, going so far as to make it sound as if there were Reindeer that landed on the roof, and making it seem like Santa “ate and drank” the milk and cookies we left out for him. But the most memorable thing of all was my parents arranging for “Santa” to actually talk to us on the phone.( it was actually one of the priests from our Parish who agreed to play as Santa and talk to us about the real meaning of christmas etc.) I still remember how breathless i felt being able to really talk to “Santa Claus” that night. It was truly a magical christmas that i will always remember.
I remember once when I was little (i think I was 7) I really wanted a unicorn for christmas. Of course I didn’t realize this was impossible! So when I woke up on Christmas morning, my dad had actually created the outline of a unicorn on the side of our house with christmas lights. I know it sounds kinda tacky LOL, but I was so happy and it actually looked pretty cool! My favorite memory of christmas ever!
When I was about 6, we gathered as usual in my grandparents’ home, it was Christmas eve and we’re also celebrating our newly born cousin. My grandpapa was holding him in his arms, when he suddenly handed him over to my grandma and said that he felt something funny in his arms. He got his first stroke attack. I never forget the supposed to be beautiful night turned into nightmare that year. He passed away 10 years after the incident. He always be in our heart.
One year my mom wrapped up this hip-high box and told me that was all I was getting. I was disappointed since my little brother had gotten a ton of presents. Christmas morning I opened my box to find all my presents wrapped up inside! If I ever do have kids I swear I’m doing this one year…
My favorite holiday memory from my childhood was the year I got a Cabbage patch doll. I wasn’t expecting it because they were so hard to find, but my mom found one for me and I still remember how excited I was when I unwrapped it.