Rose Gold Necklace Giveaway!

Uncategorized
December 11 2013
We’re practically in the Holiday season, and it’s making me feel all giving, and I couldn’t wait to share this with you guys! This beautiful Rose Gold Wishbone Necklace (£95) from the new Talisman collection by British Jewellers Beaverbrooks, could be yours! 
The collection combines a selection of silver and rose gold accesories with their very own story. This wishbone symbolises luck and good fortune, and it could become a personal talisman to you.
For your chance to win, just leave a comment below telling me your funniest holiday memory or favourite holiday tradition!

Be sure to include your e-mail address and I’ll pick my lucky winner a week from today!
(It’s open worldwide!)

Just also want to thank you all who commented on my last post, very sweet comments that made me smile!

Lots of love!

xxx

**PS** Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @ShirleyBEniang for daily updates, and check out my Instagram for lots and lots of photos! 🙂

~~~

***WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT***

Thank you to all who entered! I LOVED reading your funny stories and holiday traditions, I ended up in a fit of laughter, and shed a few tears while reading them!

I wish I could pick every single one of you, but just know that you all warmed my heart!

And the winner is….

Evangeline

I’ve sent you an e-mail, and if you could reply with your shipping info, that would be super!

I look forward to hosting more giveaways for you lot!

xxx

366 Comments

  • Reply gracie December 11 2013 at 3:48 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition used to be spending time with my fam on christmas eve praying, sharing fun stories and cooking.. but sadly i’m in med school now and i havn’t spent christmas with my fam since 2006… but i’m grateful to be alive and thankful that my fam is safe and well.. Email addy :grace_omoijiade@yahoo.com … thanx for the giveaway 🙂

  • Reply Allison December 11 2013 at 3:54 pm

    Love having my Mama come up from the country to spend the Holidays with us over at my brother’s place. She is 80 years young and we cherish the time spent with her. Besides she is a HOOT and very much the Queen of the family!!! Hope your own Holidays are blessed Shirley.

  • Reply Tracey Peach December 11 2013 at 3:57 pm

    My funniest holiday memory is when I was around 7 I was jumping up & down on a chair & I went straight through it!

  • Reply Rochelle B. December 11 2013 at 4:00 pm

    My fave holiday tradition, is going to what we call Grand Market on Christmas Eve in Jamaica and staying out late. Then going to Christmas morning service at Church then prepping Christmas dinner with the family <3 🙂
    rochellebrooks@gmail.com

  • Reply Stephanie December 11 2013 at 4:00 pm

    Such a great giveaway!

    Back in the day, my grandmother would bring (and I don’t even know HOW she got it past Customs) the bowl and pounding stick that you use to pound fufu the traditional way to our house, and we would have Fufu and peanut butter soup for Chrismas dinner. It was hilarious to be woken up in the morning to the sound of fufu being pounded. My fam are not serious you know SMH. LOL

  • Reply Chloe Lauren December 11 2013 at 4:01 pm

    This comment has been removed by the author.

  • Reply Epicurious Island Girl December 11 2013 at 4:02 pm

    First off I must say I really do love your blogs. Let me go right ahead and jump into this giveaway…
    My favourite holiday tradition is cooking…I don’t do it often enough but I make the extra effort to cook. Whatever my meal is I always top it off with my Vanilla spiced warm milk, topped off with hardened whipped cream. If you are a coffee drinker like myself I add a shot of espresso to it just before drinking.

  • Reply Caz u el Fraise December 11 2013 at 4:02 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition use to be “playing Santa” for my younger siblings but this year will be my first year away from home.

  • Reply Bella Joya December 11 2013 at 4:03 pm

    My favorite holiday memory was on christmas day, growing up in NIgeria, my whole family would literally go to about 5 of our family friends christmas parties. WE would start at church.. go to brunch at my grandparents back in our home town, then drive back to the city and visit friends and family all day. It was great because we got to catch up with people we hadnt seen in months and in some cases years.. and there was always soo much good food

  • Reply Jessica Pennington December 11 2013 at 4:03 pm

    My favorite holiday story is from when I got my dog, Rocky. I was 8 years old, and me and siblings were about to begin opening presents. My mom asked what I was going to open first and I pointed to a gift bag.
    She said “How about that big box over there?”
    I replied “Yea, I’ll open that one later!”
    But she insisted, “I really think you should open it first.” So I lifted the top off of the huge box, and inside was a little black and white shih-zu. He growled at me, and I asked
    “Can I touch it?”
    He turned out to be a very sweet dog, and we had a great time together for many years.

    jeg122994@hotmail.com

  • Reply Bella Joya December 11 2013 at 4:03 pm

    jokejag@gmail.com

  • Reply LEXI December 11 2013 at 4:04 pm

    That is a Beautiful Necklace! Anyways our holiday tradition is on Christmas Eve we have a party with all of our family and friends. Food, games, tons of cookies and A Christmas Story on replay on the television. To end the night everyone comes together and sings Christmas carols. Always ending with beat box remix of ‘Go Tell It On The Mountain’ 🙂
    Then its clean up time haha!
    lexiboldn@gmail.com

  • Reply bobbi December 11 2013 at 4:05 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition would definitely be heading to the beach (Miami girl, here) on Christmas Day (after family time in the morning)! It’s pretty weird now that I’m in England and it’s freezing around the holidays here, but I’ll always enjoy those memories. And also hopefully go home for the holidays a lot, if only for the warmth! 🙂

    Email is bobbi@todayimbobbi.com! 🙂

  • Reply Stéphanie T December 11 2013 at 4:06 pm

    Hello, one of my favourite Xmas moment of fun was when I was a child. With my little sister we used to singing stupid (but the funniest) songs we had written ourselves. Then we proudly sang it to our relatives and families … who ,I think, thought we were CRAZY ! indeed we were but that’s the loveliest moment I shared with my family.

  • Reply Chloe Lauren December 11 2013 at 4:06 pm

    That necklace looks lovely!
    My favourite holiday memory is from last year when me and my family were in Florida over Christmas and we went to the beach during the day and then had a BBQ instead of a traditional Christmas dinner. It will be a Christmas that i will never forget
    Chloe
    🙂 x
    cutelove08@hotmail.com

  • Reply Mrs. Amour December 11 2013 at 4:06 pm

    My funniest holiday memory is from the Christmas season of 2008. My husband and i decided we wanted to our children to have a real tree for Christmas. So we all pilled up in our car and headed out in search of a real christmas tree. Found it! Brought it home to decorate and upon being left alone with the tree, i discovered we had a stow away living in the tree..a field mouse! He peeked out the tree and i screamed out for my husband, but the mouse hid back in the tree so my hubby didnt believe me.as soon as he left the mouse came back out. This happened 3 times! We finally caught him and set him free, last live tree we bought!

  • Reply Jody Hosang December 11 2013 at 4:06 pm

    My favorite holiday memory was back in 2009 when my mom and I used to live in England. It was our first Christmas there and my sister came to join us from Canada. I was so excited to celebrate that I did my christmas shopping in November. We had used a desk as our tree and store the gifts under there. As soon as christmas came, my mom made a delicious dinner and gifted me a slim Ps2. Even though we werent very prepared for christmas, it felt very nice to have my family together.

    Thanks for this giveaway! 🙂
    email: jody.hosang@live.ca

  • Reply Yianna December 11 2013 at 4:07 pm

    My favourite Christmas tradition is sitting around the fireplace with the family eating chestnuts!

  • Reply Jody Hosang December 11 2013 at 4:08 pm

    My favorite holiday memory was back in 2009 when my mom and I used to live in England. It was our first Christmas there and my sister came to join us from Canada. I was so excited to celebrate that I did my christmas shopping in November. We had used a desk as our tree and store the gifts under there. As soon as christmas came, my mom made a delicious dinner and gifted me a slim Ps2. Even though we werent very prepared for christmas, it felt very nice to have my family together.

    Thanks for this giveaway! 🙂
    email: jody.hosang@live.ca

  • Reply Mrs. Amour December 11 2013 at 4:08 pm

    773Couponmom@gmail.com

  • Reply Evangeline December 11 2013 at 4:08 pm

    My favorite Holiday memory is just having my family with me wearing onesies all day. Even the adults wear onesies, and we just act silly, imitate one another, or just go out in our pjs and go caroling. I remember one time, I was with my cousins and we went Christmas caroling in our neighborhood and got lost. My Nanna’s neighborhood is pretty big and we made a wrong turn and all the houses look the same. lol None of us had our phones so we had to walk all the way back to the house in the cold. Did I forget that it was around 9pm. We were mortified, it was hilarious. We just started singing O Holy Night, on our way back. Fun times. 🙂

    email: nchaudry5@gmail.com

  • Reply LRDowell December 11 2013 at 4:09 pm

    Funniest holiday memory actually happened this year – I went over to my mom’s apartment and she had a little tabletop Christmas tree with a skirt and fake gifts set up in the hallway, along with a reef. I go inside and her Christmas tree is all set up. I took my coat off, and went back into the hall and gathered up all of the Christmas decorations and brought them back inside and said, “Mom, come on, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet!” It was still OCTOBER! We both laughed! It was hysterical (email lrdowell@gmail.com)

  • Reply LEXI December 11 2013 at 4:10 pm

    That is a Beautiful necklace! Anyways our holiday tradition is a Party for all of our family and friends on Christmas Eve. Food, games, tons of cookies, and A Christmas Story on replay on the television. To end the night we all come together and sing Christmas carols. Always ending with a beat-box filled remix of ‘Go Tell It On The Mountain’ 🙂
    Then its clean up time haha
    lexiboldn@gmail.com

  • Reply Iman ali December 11 2013 at 4:10 pm

    My funniest holiday was when I was 12 and my family and i went to Dubai. We went to a private beach and we got locked in because we didn’t know there was closing times. When we came to the realisation that we were locked in we also realised that we were the only ones in the beach!! It was a fun experience because it was a new adventure (in a pitch dark beach) I got to see a different prospective of the beach. Love you Shirley
    Email: alie019.302@gmail.com

  • Reply Damola Fowosire December 11 2013 at 4:11 pm

    Love the necklace.

    Since I started going to school in the UK, it means so much going back home to the family as it does make the holiday a lot more sentimental. When we get back we all have a nice family sit down meal and talk about how the year has been and pray and be thankful to God for seeing us through another year and to take us into the new year.

  • Reply Elena December 11 2013 at 4:11 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is this thing we do in Spain in New Year’s Eve, when its about to be 12 o clock we eat twelve grapes, one per second, in the last minute of the year, so we start the new year with our mouths full of grapes and it is always so funny! Also here in Spain this tradition is supposed to bring good luck for the next of the year, and it’s always fun! 🙂

  • Reply gina bartz December 11 2013 at 4:12 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is when my whole extended family tries to squeeze into my grandma’s small retirement condo on New Years. Every family brings a dish and we have a potluck type dinner and the family’s bow to the elders ( Korean tradition ) and you get money. it’s really fun and about the only time I get to see my extended family because we live far apart for each other. Hope you have a nice holiday Shirley 🙂

    email: Bartz.gina@gmail.com

  • Reply Elena December 11 2013 at 4:13 pm

    oh and I forgot my email, it is elena_almazan94@hotmail.com 🙂 great giveaway, love the necklace, hope I win! ^^

  • Reply A.D. December 11 2013 at 4:14 pm

    Gorgeous necklace ! Well my favorite holiday tradition is making weird faces on our christmas cards 😀

  • Reply Molly Lyon December 11 2013 at 4:14 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition is a new set of pyjamas on Christmas Eve with mulled wine! and Gremlins. Usually with a lot of chocolate and cake too, but shush…

    Molly_lyon@hotmail.co.uk x

  • Reply Tashauna Cudjo December 11 2013 at 4:15 pm

    TKCUDJO@GMAIL.COM

    my favorite holiday memory is that my family no matter what ALWAYS are all together the Saturday before Christmas. its has been the tradition in my family so long that is all I know. its a good feeling to know that everyone from my oldest aunt to youngest adult knows to be present and leave all past disagreements or arguments go for that day to celebrate the memory of my grandmother and our family as a unit.

  • Reply Kierra December 11 2013 at 4:15 pm

    My funniest holiday memory….

    I had to be about 6 or 7 years old. The anticipation of Christmas and opening gifts was far too much for me to handle, especially since my parents had already begun putting Christmas gifts under the tree for me. One night I snuck out of bed and decided to take a peek at all the gifts. I ripped the edges on every gift that was under the tree with my name on it to see what they were. Silly me, after I had done this, I stuck them back under the tree as if my mom and dad would not notice.

    The next day, my mother went under the tree to place another gift. She noticed the paper on one of the gifts was torn a little, so she picked it up to rewrap. When she did this she noticed all the others were the same…. needless to say I got busted.

    When she asked my why I had done it, I told her “You didn’t tell me not to.” Lol….oh how clever.

    Mom didn’t think so, or if she did she didn’t show it. They removed all my gifts from under the tree. On Christmas day they all returned with a letter from Santa telling me to never do that again.

    sophistikated1992Ggmail.com
    http://sophistikated1992.blogspot.com

  • Reply Melissa dv December 11 2013 at 4:16 pm

    Well my favorite holiday memory must be when I was around the age of 10, and we went to this amazing house with all the family.. And we were playing outside and I wasn’t paying attention so that’s when I fell into a river, and it was pretty scary at that point but afterwards I got so spoiled all holiday long because everyone felt pretty sorry for me..made enjoyed every bit of it so much! x

    email: melissadevrij@gmail.com

  • Reply Deneen Robinson December 11 2013 at 4:16 pm

    Christmas happens to be my favorite time of the year. My most fondest memory is when I was about 6 years old. My entire family gets together ever year at my aunt’s house to celebrate. This year my cousins, twin sister and I all got together and decide we would put on a holiday talents show. We sang, we dance, we acted, we just had a good time. Our other family members like uncles, aunts, and grandmother all participated. It may be my favorite Christmas gathering ever: every year we watch the video of the Christmas talent show that year. That will a Christmas that I will never forget as well as my family members.

    Deneen_robinson@comcast.net

  • Reply Dee Kay December 11 2013 at 4:17 pm

    This comment has been removed by the author.

  • Reply StephanieYoursTruly December 11 2013 at 4:19 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition has got to be Christmas family lunch but theeee best part has got to be the trifle on the dessert table. Hahahahah Family, and food best ever.

    stephanie20webb@gmail.com

    Happy Holidays to everyone. And stay safe during the festive season

  • Reply Fly Won December 11 2013 at 4:19 pm

    my favorite Holiday tradition is just spending time with the family and when I lived in Indianapolis, it was wishing for a white Christmas
    flywon1@gmail.com

  • Reply Fly Won December 11 2013 at 4:20 pm

    my favorite Holiday tradition is just spending time with the family and when I lived in Indianapolis, it was wishing for a white Christmas
    flywon1@gmail.com

  • Reply K.Nicole Williams December 11 2013 at 4:22 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is playing 1960-1980’s soul Christmas Music while I help my mother decorate her two Christmas trees. I haven’t done that in three years now since I’ve moved further from my parents, but I’ve extended the tradition to my new home with my own children.

  • Reply Tashauna Cudjo December 11 2013 at 4:22 pm

    Myfavorite time is that my family no matter what is always together on the Saturday before Christmas. Because my mother siblings were raised separately as kids due to the death of their mother they have made it a family tradition. We play games and share in tasting treats. That day will never changes not even for Baraka Obama… lol
    email tkcudjo@gmail.com

  • Reply MissaWebbDaughter December 11 2013 at 4:23 pm

    Hi *waving* … My funniest holiday moment was travelling overseas to spend Christmas with my sister and niece in NY who I had not seen in ages … Being from Jamaica, I underestimated the cold. Was instructed to wear boots but wanted to look hot while leaving my country, I mean boots are not for tropics. Carried my cold weather shoes in my tote only to realise when the I was ready to land that I left the shoes laces. The automatic doors opened when persons went out and sweet Jesus I knew I needed those lace, I decided, to get creative, lol, soooo, I started winding up the plastic bag the shoe was in to make a shoe lace. It worked, but my did my sister have a laugh filled with tears when terminal 4 JFK door opened and she saw her baby sister. I was good dinner table conversation for the season, but I never minded it, I got to see my family and she, me, her did that with her plastic bag makeshift shoelaces … Happy Holidays everyone!

  • Reply SouthernFusi December 11 2013 at 4:24 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is when we get together as a family and play games. Its typically women vs men and it is guaranteed to be interesting and filled with lots of fun and laughter. Games include Are you Smarter than a 5th grader, Family Feud, Battle of the Sexes Pictionary, and one year we even battled on the Wii w/the Michael Jackson experience!

  • Reply Cristina December 11 2013 at 4:24 pm

    It was always the Christmas Eve my favorite time to spend at home with my family. In Eastern Orthodox tradition on Christmas Eve we put the “table” on the floor so to eat “in difficulty” as the God’s mother spend the days between 20th of December and the birth of the Christ on 25th of December. And we eat only meatless meals and make our own bread.

  • Reply whatdiduweartoday December 11 2013 at 4:24 pm

    My favorite tradition is decorating the Christmas tree with my granny and sisters on Christmas Eve. Every year we get my granny’s favorite food and then go over to decorate the tree. We’ve been decorating the tree on Christmas Eve my whole life and it seems strange to do it on any other day.

  • Reply Talisa Tossell December 11 2013 at 4:24 pm

    My fav holiday tradition is eating brandy butter out of the tub watching “Elf”, timeless. Love this piece of jewellery!

    http://talisatalksbeauty.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/latest-in-beauty-whatsinyourstocking.html

  • Reply SouthernFusi December 11 2013 at 4:25 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is when we get together as a family and play games. Its typically women vs men and it is guaranteed to be interesting and filled with lots of fun and laughter. Games include Are you Smarter than a 5th grader, Family Feud, Battle of the Sexes Pictionary, and one year we even battled on the Wii w/the Michael Jackson experience!

  • Reply MsFabiola90 December 11 2013 at 4:28 pm

    4 years the holidays changed for as my favorite aunt was laid to rest on christmas day
    So since that time i always have mixed feelings kind of bittersweet around this period of the year !! But even it reminds me of a very sad it also allows me to remember the amazing time i spent with 😊! those memories are my favorite moments
    fabynjongang@live.fr

  • Reply Tanja Indjic December 11 2013 at 4:28 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition is making snowman because we all start making it together but in the end it all becomes a big snowball fight and we all end up like a snowman after it 🙂

  • Reply Christina Rich December 11 2013 at 4:29 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is sittin by tree after dinner drinking hot chocolate and watching a Charlie Brown Christmas with my husband and kids. Then we go drive around the neighborhood and look at all of the homes and their lights. 🙂 cnina.hayes@yahoo.com

    Please read my blog at cocoanina.com…

  • Reply MsFabiola90 December 11 2013 at 4:30 pm

    4 years the holidays changed for as my favorite aunt was laid to rest on christmas day
    So since that time i always have mixed feelings kind of bittersweet around this period of the year !! But even it reminds me of a very sad it also allows me to remember the amazing time i spent with 😊! those memories 😍

  • Reply JAB December 11 2013 at 4:31 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is Christmas Eve dinner with my family. My Mom makes so many delicious African dishes (we’re Sierra Leonean) and we just reminisce about childhood memories.
    Thanks for the great giveaway!

  • Reply Jessica Fraser December 11 2013 at 4:32 pm

    My favorite holiday memory was when my mother used to host the family christmas party here at the house and all of my cousins and aunts and uncles used to come over and consume heaps of food! my mom has since past 🙁 so we don’t get together as much anymore. but my favorite holiday tradition hands down is the eggnog :). thanks for hosting this giveaway and even if i don’t win i hope you and your family have a merry christmas!
    fraserjessica23@yahoo.com

  • Reply MsFabiola90 December 11 2013 at 4:32 pm

    Those memories are my most cherished and favourite xmas tradition thinking about her and knowing she is looking over us puts a smile on my face

  • Reply JAB December 11 2013 at 4:34 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is spending time/talking about childhood with my family on Christmas Eve while my Mom prepares yummy African food (we’re Sierra Leonean). Thanks for the awesome giveaway!

  • Reply Becky December 11 2013 at 4:34 pm

    My favorite christmas tradition is on the 23rd of December, which is called Þorláksmessa here in Iceland where I live! We eat salted fish and fermented skate! Then it is traditional to have a stroll through the main streets in the evenings, drink hot chocolate and even put up Christmas trees! So cozy to enjoy time with the family. And then on the 24th we celebrate christas, or Aðfangadagur! Here it is traditional to get dressed up, hava a fancy dinner and open presents on Christmas Eve 🙂
    Love your blog! Thanks for the Giveaway 🙂
    bergny91@gmail.com

  • Reply Talisa Tossell December 11 2013 at 4:35 pm

    OH and my email is contacttalisa@gmail.com

  • Reply r.w.190292 December 11 2013 at 4:36 pm

    my favorite Christmas tradition is definitely putting up the tree whilst blasting Christmas songs through the house!
    rachel_9_9_9@hotmail.co.uk
    xxxxxxxxxxx

  • Reply Farah Marius December 11 2013 at 4:37 pm

    My Favorite Holiday tradition is when we use to be young we would all get togheter my mom dad, brother and sister and we would wait for our traditional 100$ in an enveloppe from our mom and dad lol You know as kids you never truly understand the value of money until you get older. And i will always be gratefull as for my Mom and Dad could afford each year to give the same amount of Money plus toys to their 3 kids knowing that some other kids don’t have it as good as other…

  • Reply Lucy Cole December 11 2013 at 4:38 pm

    My funniest Holiday memory was last year when my mum and I bought myself and my two older brothers elf jumpers and hats, my mum and dad had santa jumpers & hats and my little doggie had a reindeer outfit! We wore them all Christmas day and look hilarious!!

    lucycole97@gmail.com

    Lucy Cole | A UK Fashion, Style and Beauty Blog

  • Reply anna December 11 2013 at 4:40 pm

    My funniest holiday memory is:
    Well we we’re celbrating NY’ eve with close friends and family and us youngster we were having fun and stuff. We also wanted to have some fun so we grabed a bottle of Muscador ‘ bubbly girly wine’. While the older youngster were aloud to go out and celebrate it in we then thought was a cool club. You must know them african boys always want to look fresh to go out and stuff. One of them decided to put creme in his hair to give it a boost. Hahahaha, but i tell you , you can not just trust a bottle of pink in a african girls bathroom i guess. Well he put the creme in his hair , he already said it smelled funny. But the after a while he said it kinda burns . So we started laughing like serious i almost rolled on the ground i laughed laughed and laughed till the tears came in my eyes. Anywhooo he did not put creme but he put already finished relaxer in his hair . Omyygosh it still makes me laugh. If i don’t win I still hope you had a good laugh and enjoy your holidays with friend , fam and God!
    annaise6@hotmail.com
    Hugs and kisses from Holland
    excuse my English

  • Reply Jalisa Lewis December 11 2013 at 4:40 pm

    My funniest holiday memory is from when I was about 9 years old. My brother and decided to put on musical version of the birth of Jesus for my grandmother, aunts, and uncles. We even had it recorded! During our performance, one of my younger brothers disappeared. We carried on with the musical only to hear my grandmother laughing and giggling like crazy for no reason! We all turned around to see what amused her only to find my baby brother climbed on top of the table eating the Christmas ham! Hahaa I shall never forget that, he was so hungry! :p
    Just wanted to add that I appreciate you Shirley. You are such an inspiration to me, stay blessed!

    jalisa_lewis@live.ca

  • Reply Kim Powell December 11 2013 at 4:41 pm

    favorite holiday tradition: We’re a Caribbean family- Jamaican to be exact. And I love the fusion food that happens during dinner time. We always just spend the entire day together playing some reggae, and having dance competitions. A more specific tradition is: I am notorious for staying away from the kitchen during cooking time, so for the past three years, I’ve been the dessert maker! I love making rum-balls, eggnog, and this year, I’m gonna try macarons!

    email:powkim18@gmail.com / powitskim@gmail.com

  • Reply shauna Coke December 11 2013 at 4:43 pm

    My funniest holiday memory is when i was younger my mom would take my brother and I to Trinidad for Christmas and it so happens my birthday is Christmas Eve so family would be over on my birthday to celebrate and I would be in the bathroom sick!!! This would happen EVERY year we went back home. SMH. Merry Christmas to you Shirley and all the best in the New Year!
    misss2477@hotmail.com

  • Reply amaka crystal December 11 2013 at 4:45 pm

    My funniest holiday memory……..
    Last year during Xmas my family went out to visit their friends we thought they won’t be stay long so I and my kid sis decided to stay back.after waiting for like 3hours without seeing them we decided to go to our grandparents house on our way we noticed that a group of boys were following us,we hastened our steps and they also did….we thought they were trying to harm us so we started running,gosh they started running too,my Lil sis being so scared started screaming,they too were screaming. as we neared my grandparents house people there joined us in the race thinking that some thing was pursuing us,we ran into our grannies house and those boys did shouting. That was when I noticed that the boys were running because they thought something was chasing us…lolz not knowing we were running cos of them

  • Reply Neofashionologist December 11 2013 at 4:45 pm

    Hello Shirley,
    hmmm.. there are so many funny holiday moments. One memorable one was getting hit on my huge with a huge snow ball by my friend during a snow fight in the dark. We spontaneously decided to play snow fight and I throw the first ball of snow then, got hit hard. The smallest moments mean the most. Good times.

    Happy Holidays. Take care.

  • Reply Stefanie Knudsen December 11 2013 at 4:47 pm

    One of my favorite Christmas traditions is that we sing Christmas songs around the Christmas tree and after that we run around the whole house, while holding hands, singing a traditional Danish song. We do this every year and everyone participates.

    Stefaniek@live.dk

  • Reply Margaret Owens December 11 2013 at 4:48 pm

    There are so many memories for the holiday season. So I will go with my favorite tradition That is meeting my college girlfriend in NYC every year right before Christmas for last moment shopping. It’s cold but some much fun to catch up and see the city. Thanks for the chance at this lovely gift.

  • Reply ChocoDiamonds December 11 2013 at 4:48 pm

    My funniest Holiday moment is when I have to work CHRISTMAS. We bring a dish to pass. I made a upside down APPLE PIE. So it’s time for Dessert and NOBODY TOUCHED IT, one nurse said WHAT IS IT, AFTER TELLING HER SHE JUST LOOKED LOOKED LOOKED, THEN I WAS GOING TO THROW IT AWAY, THEN A CROWD OF PEOPLE WERE LIKE WHERE ARE YOU GOING, I REPLIED TO THE TRASH, OH NO!!!!!! it was funny, they didn’t want it, until i was going to toss it,& GUESS WHAT.. THEY LOVED IT, YOU CAN’T ALWAYS JUDGE A DESSERT BY IT’S COVER .. I LAUGHED AND PATTED MY SELF ON THE BACK AND SAID GOOD JOB MO…..

  • Reply Brandy Mongoy December 11 2013 at 4:48 pm

    I have a few holiday tradition but my favourite would probably be sending Christmas messages to everyone! I even send it to my mum even though we’re under the same roof! I love sending an inspirational message and funny ones especially to family and my boyfriend. On Christmas day in my house we have LOADS AND LOADS OF FOOD! especially traditional food! And we just watch xmas films all day.. Especially the Shrek ones on BBC1 LOL. And we always gather to watch Eastenders.. The commentary is hilarious. My mum always predicts what will happen before it happens hahaha I love it, African parents ey! But yh, that’s xmas over here ^.^

  • Reply mary3 December 11 2013 at 4:49 pm

    my favorite holiday tradition is that all my family relatives gather together and after dinner we sit around a fire and tell folk tales (African fairy tales)while eating traditionally cooked corn and peanuts. Miss that a lot cause l moved.

    siphuma.siphuma@gmail.com

  • Reply Brandy Mongoy December 11 2013 at 4:49 pm

    I have a few holiday tradition but my favourite would probably be sending Christmas messages to everyone! I even send it to my mum even though we’re under the same roof! I love sending an inspirational message and funny ones especially to family and my boyfriend. On Christmas day in my house we have LOADS AND LOADS OF FOOD! especially traditional food! And we just watch xmas films all day.. Especially the Shrek ones on BBC1 LOL. And we always gather to watch Eastenders.. The commentary is hilarious. My mum always predicts what will happen before it happens hahaha I love it, African parents ey! But yh, that’s xmas over here ^.^

  • Reply karin December 11 2013 at 4:50 pm

    Funniest when I tripped on the snow outside during Christmas

    cookiesmasher5@yahoo.com

  • Reply Jennifer Arrington December 11 2013 at 4:51 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is my mom, sisters, dad and nephew all get together under one roof and tell funny stories. Christmas morning we wake up early and exchange gifts, my dad makes a BIGGGG breakfast, he saves the eggs for the last thing to cook, when he puts the eggs on he yells,I’m putting the eggs on, we know that when we need to making our way to the kitchen. We all eat and then sit and watch the Macy’s parade. After that we get dress, head over to my dads side of the family eat, laugh and exchange gifts and then after that say our good byes and head over to my moms side of the family, play games,laugh, exchange gifts and eat again!!

  • Reply AnnRose Boakye December 11 2013 at 4:54 pm

    My funniest holiday memory is when I played in the nativity with my school and I fell over! so embarassing, but so funny 🙂

    you have such a kind heart Shirley, stay blessed 🙂

    annie-rawr@hotmail.com x

  • Reply Thembelihle Sokhela December 11 2013 at 4:56 pm

    Hey Shirley 👋
    My fav tradition / memory really is when we were kids and lived in the township and we would wake up early, get dressed eat the food prepared then start going to other peoples houses in my neighborhood to eat. Every one would meet outside and we would travel together, like treat or treating. So ud get a bunch of kids at your house they’d eat and leave once that was done your Christmas was preety much over lol. I wigs I could still do that minus the bursting tummy 😁 ( thembelihlesokhela@gmail.com)

    Lots of love from Durban South Africa. 😘

  • Reply Thembelihle Sokhela December 11 2013 at 4:56 pm

    Hey Shirley 👋
    My fav tradition / memory really is when we were kids and lived in the township and we would wake up early, get dressed eat the food prepared then start going to other peoples houses in my neighborhood to eat. Every one would meet outside and we would travel together, like treat or treating. So ud get a bunch of kids at your house they’d eat and leave once that was done your Christmas was preety much over lol. I wigs I could still do that minus the bursting tummy 😁 ( thembelihlesokhela@gmail.com)

    Lots of love from Durban South Africa. 😘

  • Reply Thembelihle Sokhela December 11 2013 at 4:56 pm

    Hey Shirley 👋
    My fav tradition / memory really is when we were kids and lived in the township and we would wake up early, get dressed eat the food prepared then start going to other peoples houses in my neighborhood to eat. Every one would meet outside and we would travel together, like treat or treating. So ud get a bunch of kids at your house they’d eat and leave once that was done your Christmas was preety much over lol. I wigs I could still do that minus the bursting tummy 😁 ( thembelihlesokhela@gmail.com)

    Lots of love from Durban South Africa. 😘

  • Reply Emily P December 11 2013 at 4:57 pm

    I love this necklace!

    My favourite Christmas tradition is baking. Just about everything has to involve cinnamon, cranberries, orange and chocolate these days. It’s deffo been fun trying to get my housemates to warm to them haha

    x_poprocks_x@hotmail.com

    x

  • Reply Brigid Woznicki December 11 2013 at 4:59 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is cooking dinner with my mom and sister I’ve also started a new tradition of getting my cat gifts and giving her her own stocking 🙂

    Email: xobrigid@yahoo.com

  • Reply ag14 December 11 2013 at 4:59 pm

    Hi Shirley!

    Happy Holidays! I would say that my funniest holiday memory would definitely be last Christmas Eve when we opened up our first gift (Christmas pj’s lol) as we always do. Anticipating a cute pj set I was shocked to see I no longer qualified for “baby” pajamas, and had a more mature set. Hey, I guess we all have to grow up at some point huh? lol Definitely the laugh we needed for the holidays 🙂
    agreen 707@gmail.com

  • Reply Vividly Glam December 11 2013 at 5:00 pm

    My favorite holiday pastime is gathering with all my cousins and telling embarrassing stories from our childhood. We also gather around to look at photo albums and watch “The Christmas Story”.

  • Reply Melva Bernard December 11 2013 at 5:02 pm

    This comment has been removed by the author.

  • Reply Tammy December 11 2013 at 5:02 pm

    My birthday is Christmas Eve so my favorite memory is, as a child my mother and stepfather would allow my sister to open one of her gifts on my birthday so that she wouldn’t feel left out when I opened mine. Then on Christmas we would open the rest of our gifts together 🙂

  • Reply |♥--Vicky--♥| December 11 2013 at 5:02 pm

    As a young girl, I find music to be the one thing that unifies friends and family, especially Christmas music. After my family and I do our own final touch ups on the Christmas tree, it’s our tradition to get all cozy on the sofa and sing Christmas songs and share past holiday memories. Laughter and cheer always fills the room as we just sing and bond as a family. I’m in college now but i can’t wait to get back home to continue this beautiful tradition.

  • Reply Filomena Mairosse December 11 2013 at 5:03 pm

    Hi Shirley! My fav holiday “tradition” if we can call it that is eating this curry only me and my dad like after Christmas Eve mass. My mom always makes it before we leave for mass and when we come back me and my dad bond over it and it’s really nice since I’m not that close to my dad. That’s pretty much our little moment 🙂 I haven’t been able to do that for the last 2 years (3 if you include this coming one) since I’m abroad studying and there’s no Christmas or New Year break here (China) + it’s always exam time during Christmas and New Year.

  • Reply Melva Bernard December 11 2013 at 5:04 pm

    I’ve had some pretty fun Christmases in my days. I live in Belize City but every Christmas my family and I go to the village where my mom is from to celebrate Christmas with my extended family. Christmas in the villages are way better because of all the traditions. Some of the traditions include villagers visiting each other houses ( we call it bramming) and play the guitar, drums and the mouth organ; another tradition is having the “two foot cow” chase kids in streets just for fun but as a kid I didn’t know it was for fun, I took it serious and I was afraid of the “two foot cow” lol.

    One Christmas when I was about 9 years old my family and I went to the village to celebrate. I decided that day that I wanted to go with my cousins down the street to visit my aunt. Lo and behold here comes “two foot cow”. When I saw him I froze, I didn’t know what to do. Helter skelter my cousins ran, leaving me standing there frozen from fright. “Two foot cow” ran towards me and started mooing and suddenly tears found my eyes, and pee ran down my feet ( i peed myself lol). The guy under the “two foot cow” mask probably felt sorry for me so he took off his mask to reveal himself so as to let me know that all is well. I was shocked to see the “two foot cow” was my eldest brother haha I immediately stopped crying and was suddenly happy to know that I didn’t have to be scared again haha. My brother picked me up and swung me around in air; I was so happy. He decided to put his mask back on and with me on his back he ran down the streets after my cousins haha. I felt so happy and brave. My cousin s and other kids screamed down the street. That was one of my best Christmases, and up to now i’m still teased about it lol

    P.S. I forgot to include my email before, but here is the same story again and my email address is: mbernardbz@gmail.com

    thanks!

  • Reply Tammy December 11 2013 at 5:05 pm

    My birthday is Christmas Eve so when I was younger, my parents would allow my sister to open one of her Christmas gifts on my birthday while I opened birthday gifts so that she wouldn’t feel left out. Then we would open the rest of our Christmas gifts together at midnight!. That’s my favorite tradition for my sister and I 🙂

  • Reply Filomena Mairosse December 11 2013 at 5:05 pm

    Hi Shirley! My fav holiday “tradition” if we can call it that is eating this curry only me and my dad like after Christmas Eve mass. My mom always makes it before we leave for mass and when we come back me and my dad bond over it and it’s really nice since I’m not that close to my dad. That’s pretty much our little moment 🙂 I haven’t been able to do that for the last 2 years (3 if you include this coming one) since I’m abroad studying and there’s no Christmas or New Year break here (China) + it’s always exam time during Christmas and New Year.

    email: filomena.mairosse@gmail.com

    hope you have an amazing holiday season!! 🙂

  • Reply Sarah December 11 2013 at 5:08 pm

    Funniest Christmas memory was when my brother who was quite young at the time had some trifle and went to the toilet upstairs and fell down the stairs afterwards! we all thought it was because of the cherry in the trifle!! xx

  • Reply Style MyLife December 11 2013 at 5:11 pm

    My fave holiday tradition/treat is having Jamaican rum cake and Sorrel. This is the one time of their year that you can find these two things in most Jamaican homes. I can literally live off this stuff. If you havent had either, hit up your local Jamaican grocery store and get you some, I assure you you’ll love it!

    shevena26@gmail.com

  • Reply Stephanie Carter December 11 2013 at 5:11 pm

    My funniest holiday memory has to be the year it was confirmed for me that Santa was really my loving parents. I was sent to bed at a reasonable hour, so that “Santa” could have clear access to put my gifts under the tree. I had always been the type of kid to pretend to sleep, thinking I would see Santa. I would usually fall asleep, but this particular year, I noticed my parents having a heated discussion. I was hoping they didn’t get into a full argument on Christmas Eve, when I heard my mother say, “Exactly how are you going to explain this to Stephanie?” I realized my older brother had joined the conversation, when I heard him reply, “Tell her Santa was having an off day and accidentally landed in the trunk of Dad’s car and we broke the key off trying to get him out.” Yes, all my gifts were trapped in the trunk of my dad’s car. They made a quick trip to Cunningham’s (now Rite-Aid) to pick up some last minute items, but they ran with my brother suggestion. It was hilarious, however, because they never expected me to expect to find Santa’s dead body in the trunk. I was finally told the truth about Santa when I asked my father how the body disappeared. It is still a beautiful Christmas memory as I learn to embrace the holidays without my dear parents.

  • Reply Feyi A December 11 2013 at 5:11 pm

    When I was younger my family flew to Nigeria to see my grandparents and all my uncles where flying from where ever they lived, Canada, UK, USA. When we got to Nigeria we stayed at my grandparents place and they have a pool so we all went swimming christmas night and I remember my mum and her brothers pushing each other into the pool like they did when they were growing up in that house. It was lovely to see my mum and her brothers act like they did when they were younger and it was very funny!

    feyialufohai@gmail.com
    http://marveling-mind.blogspot.com/

  • Reply Feyi A December 11 2013 at 5:13 pm

    When I was younger my family flew to Nigeria to see my grandparents and all my uncles where flying from where ever they lived, Canada, UK, USA. When we got to Nigeria we stayed at my grandparents place and they have a pool so we all went swimming christmas night and I remember my mum and her brothers pushing each other into the pool like they did when they were growing up in that house. It was lovely to see my mum and her brothers act like they did when they were younger and it was very funny!

    feyialufohai@gmail.com
    marveling-mind.blogspot.com

  • Reply lipstickmysteries December 11 2013 at 5:15 pm

    Thank you for this! My favorite holiday tradition is spending time with my family. I love driving my two oldest nieces around the ritzy part of my town to look at all of the huge mansions with lights and Christmas decorations and lights, while listening to Christmas music. It’s so nice to see the girls smile with joy at the Christmas spirit around our town. x

    lipstickmysteriesblog@gmail.com

  • Reply Rachel xo December 11 2013 at 5:16 pm

    Definatley my fave tradition is getting a new pair of cosy pjs to wear on christmas eve!
    rachelevans-94@hotmail.co.uk
    x

  • Reply Tany December 11 2013 at 5:23 pm

    My funniest holiday memory was a Christmas day morning many years ago (I think I was 9 at the time): me and my brother and sisters went running to the Christmas tree as soon as we woke up, hoping to find it packed with presents… Only to find it packed with potatoes (a prank by my father!). We found the presents later at my parents bedroom after crying out loud our disappointment… It wasn’t exactly funny at the time, but we all had a laugh later in the day…
    Thanks for this chance of winning this wonderful necklace,
    My email: tany0471@sapo.pt
    Tany from http://tanyetlamode.blogspot.com, blogging from Portugal

  • Reply Imogen December 11 2013 at 5:24 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition is making homemade mince pies with my dad on christmas eve 🙂 we put the elvis gospel album on and have some mulled wine whilst making the pies, it’s a great way for us to spend time together and it’s so much fun!

  • Reply Maria December 11 2013 at 5:24 pm

    My absolute favorite holiday tradition is baking cookies with my mom and my dad. Since my parents are divorced, this is something that my younger sister and I both look forward too because we get cookies for DAYS!
    My email address is fromthesouthblog @ gmail . com

  • Reply Katie Logue December 11 2013 at 5:33 pm

    Favourite Christmas moment/tradition is always making my sister cry with joy at christmas. There’s always one present that will make her produce tears of delight!
    kml1998@hotmail.co.uk
    xxx

  • Reply Monaliisa December 11 2013 at 5:33 pm

    My Favorite Holiday tradition is opening 1 gift with my brothers on Christmas eve and falling asleep by the tree & waking up bright and early to open gifts! Still get excited after 21 years haha
    Happy Holidays to you & yours Shirley.. Keep Sweet, with Love from Canada 🙂
    c.henryroper314@yahoo.ca

  • Reply Monaliisa December 11 2013 at 5:34 pm

    My Favorite Holiday tradition is opening 1 gift with my brothers on Christmas eve and falling asleep by the tree & waking up bright and early to open gifts! Still get excited after 21 years haha
    Happy Holidays to you & yours Shirley.. Keep Sweet, with Love from Canada 🙂
    c.henryroper314@yahoo.ca

  • Reply Ana December 11 2013 at 5:35 pm

    My favourite holiday memory is probably the time my dog chewed the Christmas tree lights and the power went out for the rest of the day and night! We had a nice, candle lit Christmas Eve. Since this year is going to be the first Christmas without him, I hope that memory will be able to put a smile on my face 🙂

    sora_lu_leo@yahoo.com

  • Reply Sydnee Best December 11 2013 at 5:39 pm

    My funniest holiday memory….
    Since my birthday is the day after Christmas, I went for my drivers test the day after. Was doing very well on the driving portion until…I got back to the office. Well, I had gotten a new pair of boots, they were very slippery, press the gas instead of the brake to park!! My mom’s brand new BMW flew down into the lower parking lot then into a cemetery!!! Not funny then, but is my families funniest christmas holiday memory.
    Kikibest25@gmail.com

  • Reply Kellys Vida December 11 2013 at 5:39 pm

    Beautiful necklace! My favorite holiday tradition is just being with loved ones plan and simple. I feel like those you surround yourself with are what makes that moment much more meaningful! 🙂

    kellysvida.blogspot.com

  • Reply fromcurveswithlove December 11 2013 at 5:41 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition is definitely being with family, with lots of laughter, food, drinks and having a good laugh! I’m a student away from home (my first time in the UK) just about to complete my MBA and this is my first time being away from home during Christmas! It would definitely make my day to win this giveaway! Merry Christmas! Cheers 🙂 x

  • Reply Helen Dierckx December 11 2013 at 5:45 pm

    It’s a christmas tradition that my grandma makes home made (delicious!) potato croquettes. Normally there are so many croquettes that we can eat until we can’t eat anymore (beside of the dessert).
    But two years ago, everyone was suprised that after a 3 or 4 pieces the plate of croquettes was empty. We were all a litle bit disappointed!
    But then, after a few months, my uncle confessed that he hided the second plate of croquettes for himself! Greedy uncle! 🙂

    Really love your blog and the necklace, it’s beautiful!

  • Reply Dee Kay December 11 2013 at 5:46 pm

    Sorry Shirley had to delete my previous comment I forgot to enter my email. msdeekay2012@gmail.com
    Its so typical but my favorite holiday tradition is waking up to christmas music and opening gifts on xmas day plus counting down new years watching the fireworks. What makes it special is spending the time with those close to my heart! that necklace is lovely and I hope im lucky enough to win. Enjoyed reading all the lovely stories above.
    Happy Holidays Shirley,
    Dee
    Ms Dee Kay

  • Reply HumanN8ure December 11 2013 at 5:49 pm

    Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to you Shirley….you are an amazing inspiration!!! My favorite holiday tradition is decorating the Christmas tree. I am the one who does it every year and now that I have my own little one and husband, I decorated with my little one this year and it was pretty awesome!!!!

  • Reply marie December 11 2013 at 5:53 pm

    My favorite holiday memory was of my childhood. Every year after our holiday supper my cousin and I would have a fashion show. We would dress up in our parents’ cloths and show our outfits to our friends and family. Our catwalk was horrible but we did not care. I still smile when I think back to those moments.
    My email is Carmitha@aol.com

  • Reply carlahollands December 11 2013 at 5:55 pm

    my funniest christmas memory is the year we had all the family round and mum was doing the dinner. dished up everyones and everyone was sat down at the table so went out to the kitchen and realised she hadnt plated herself one up! so she had to go round stealing bits off of everyones plates

    carlahollands@hotmail.com

    xx

  • Reply mrrrrrrrn December 11 2013 at 5:58 pm

    For me during the holiday it’s all about family and food, so my favourite holiday tradition is our dinner on christmas eve, which is a delicious italian salad that is made by my grandpa and served with some bread, salmon and caviar, it’s soo good, i love it!!

    Thanks for the giveaway, the necklace is just too beautiful Shirley 🙂
    xx

    kassiopeija-nessaja@web.de

  • Reply Aisha Matthews December 11 2013 at 6:04 pm

    Hi Shirley! I would say my absolute favourite Jamaican holiday tradition is having our family reunion every Christmas season. I get to hang with all my cousins and we all go to what could be described as a street festival in the town known as “Grand Market”. We all dress up and go out before midnight on Christmas Eve to shop at all the pop up stalls and stores and there is music everywhere. Of course this is made even better by having all sorts of Christmas dishes and cakes (and rum). I am now 24 and live away from home but it has always been my favourite thing to do during Christmas.

    ps. Thank you for sharing tid bits of your life and for sparing time to give tutorials! I appreciate it! x Aisha (email: acsmatthews@gmail.com)

  • Reply Kendrick Smith December 11 2013 at 6:09 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is baking Christmas treats with my mom and my sister. It makes our house smell so good!

  • Reply Kendrick Smith December 11 2013 at 6:09 pm

    Oh I forgot my email: kmsmith0619@yahoo.com!

  • Reply mimi chris December 11 2013 at 6:11 pm

    Hey,thank you for giving us the opportunity to share a lil of our lifes with you.it been two years i have been away from my family,and i miss HOME so much especially celebrating xmas in ‘the African way’.My Favourite Xmas holiday(very special to me)was in 2009,the last Xmas i spent with my Dad(he is no more).On the 24th eve,after church service,when went to a resturant where we eat bush meat and fried riz,lol.that was also when he told us stories how he fell in love with Mom and taught us his favorite dacing moves.As a gift that year,i recieved a nouvel of Jane Eyre.Thank for reading this little piece of me. ingridcassie@yahoo.com

  • Reply Tish Manderson December 11 2013 at 6:14 pm

    Hi Shirley,

    My funniest holiday memory has to be sitting together with my grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, parents and extended family and listening to the stories about how they were raised and the things they have been through. It allows me to realize how blessed I am and makes me extremely appreciative of my heritage.
    I would love to win that necklace.
    Even if i don’t I just want to let you know that I admire you and you should never change unless you are evolving into an even more amazing individual.

    Lots of Love
    Tish Manderson
    tishmanderson@gmail.com

  • Reply Rebecca Adjei December 11 2013 at 6:18 pm

    When my 3 siblings and I were very young, our nana started the tradition of hiding a small plastic bird in our Christmas tree (it was notable for the Band-Aid on its left leg, courtesy of a run-in with the family dog). The three of us would search high and low to find the bird, which was supposed to bring the finder luck in the coming year.

    Oh and my email is(got carried away thinking about it,haha): rebeccaadjei2@gmail.com

  • Reply Lucy A December 11 2013 at 6:18 pm

    Hey Shirley,

    My favorite holiday tradition (although I am 22) is when my siblings and I push all our beds together to make one huge bed on christmas eve. We sleep soundly with the anticipation of Christmas day… The food, family and festive cheer. Happy Christmas Shirley, I hope you have a great one x (email: lucyfayea@googlemail.com)

  • Reply Lucy A December 11 2013 at 6:24 pm

    Hey Shirley,

    My favorite Christmas tradition (even still now i´m 22) is when, on christmas eve my brother, sister and I all push our beds together to make a giant bed and we sleep soundly with the anticipation of christmas. The food, family and festive cheer. Christmas is the best time of year in my eyes. Merry Christmas Shirley. Hope it is perfect.xx (email: lucfayea@googlemail.com)

  • Reply Patrícia Marková December 11 2013 at 6:24 pm

    My funniest holiday memory is from the last year. My dog chewed the Christmas tree lights in the garden. I was so shocked but also amused at the same time. 😀 I couldn’t stop laughing. He was tangled in the cables, looking desperately at me. Thank God there was only low-tension current and nothing happened to him. 😀 Since then I just love telling this crazy Christmas story 😀
    patrishathebeauty@gmail.com

  • Reply A Journey to " A House of One's Own" December 11 2013 at 6:28 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is having Christmas brunch and secret santa exchange with my Dad’s side of the family. He is one of 15 and secret santa is the only way to go!

  • Reply N rudie December 11 2013 at 6:29 pm

    Hello Shirley,

    I live in Jamaica so of course there’s no snow – something I would bet my favourite snippet of the holiday season would include.

    Nevertheless, the family always manages to make each year memorable. But my favourite all-time memory would be last year 2012.
    It’s my family tradition to have “Pixie Exchange of Gifts” each year.
    And of course the usual gift from daddy and mum.

    I remember looking under the tree anxiously every single day that I woke up shaking the box before anyone caught me. Daddy had placed a gift under there for me and it was in a huuuge box. Mommy got one as well.

    We were super excited but puzzled and impatient.

    On that Christmas morning when we were opening the gifts I basically tore offf every single thing from that wrapper (Mum was more gentle – she has a thing for taking offf wrappers neatly #weirdiknow :))

    But to our surprise when we opened the boxes it was just stuff from around the house and TOOLS! daddy is an electrician and he just piled up his tools in the boxes as well as mum’s sewing kit and so on in those boxes! Everyone laughed ‘suh till!’

    Then he came in with the real gifts which were amazing.

    It may not seem like much but the feelings that morning were a variety – suspense, eagerness, surprise, elation, you name it. But most of all, family is what counts. And that was the best Christmas holiday I can remember.

    Once yuh have family, yuh nuh need notn’ more
    (Once you have family, you don’t need anything else.)

    God bless you Shirley.
    Happy holidays from my family to yours.

  • Reply Ida Sey December 11 2013 at 6:32 pm

    Hey Shirley! Thanks for keeping us updated ; it’s so lovely that you share such personal things with us.
    it is indeed a great time to give!
    my favourite family tradition is BirthMas. My mum coined the phrase “BirthMas”. It’s a combo of birthdays and christmas. my family is spread out within the Uk and Gambia, and we often can’t spend holidays and birthdays together. so, my family does a massive secret santa, which makes up for all the missed days together. we have a big dinner, and dress up and generally make a big deal out of it! it’s great. my family has got that uk/west african vibe going too! im hoping for some fried plantain this christmas, as you can’t get it where I live.
    I hope you read this! have a wonderful christmas, stay positive, you’re such an icon for me!
    lots of love and happiness,
    Ida xxx
    Email: idasey@outlook.com
    Instagram: idasey
    tumblr: idasey.tumblr.com

  • Reply Malou Shigebu December 11 2013 at 6:41 pm

    I live in Denmark and my favorite holiday memory is from a couple of years ago when I still lived at home and my parents were in London on a little trip. Well, it started snowing while they were over there and they couldn’t get back home. It was turning in to a sort of “Home Alone” situation with me and my dog alone in our big house, wondering if we were going to spend Christmas alone. It was snowing alot, almost at the point where I couldn’t open my door. My favorite memory is the day when I was wondering around in the forrest near by with my dog in knee-high snow and getting the call from my parents telling me that they had finally gotten a new planeticket and would be home for Christmas eve. That was just pure, undescribable joy

  • Reply Wehaf December 11 2013 at 6:45 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is picking out the tree. I think it is so exciting to go out, everyone together, and think about this tree or that one, skinny or fat, pine or fir, etc.

    urchiken at gmail dot com

  • Reply grace and gratitude December 11 2013 at 6:53 pm

    hi shirley,

    greetings from canada-land!
    i would have to say that my favorite family holiday tradition would have to be driving up to new york with my family to my aunts house and ringing in the new year with the people i love the most. last year we had a total of 47 family members all crammed into my aunts house and it was too much fun. we don’t get to see them that often, so it’s nice when we can all get together and be silly together. getting my grandma to get up and reenact childhood dances she used to do is always my highlight! she’s such a doll.

    🙂
    vanessa

  • Reply Rhianna McPherson December 11 2013 at 6:55 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition is being with my family having a big chritmas dinner, also after dinner we sit In the front room and play games and talk while eating (AGAIN) chrisps, chocolates and drinking Sholer 😀
    email: rhiannamcpherson14@gmail.com

  • Reply Rhianna McPherson December 11 2013 at 6:57 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition is being with my family having a big chritmas dinner, also after dinner we sit In the front room and play games and talk while eating (AGAIN) chrisps, chocolates and drinking Sholer 😀
    email: rhiannamcpherson14@gmail.com

  • Reply Rhianna McPherson December 11 2013 at 7:00 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition is being with my family and eating christmas dinner! I also really enjoy later on in the evening when we all sit in the front room playing games and talking while we eat (AGAIN) crisps, chocolates and drink Sholer 😀

    e-mail: rhiannamcpherson14@gmail.com

    Xxxx.

  • Reply HairBella December 11 2013 at 7:03 pm

    Greetings Shirley. Happy Holidays to you and your family.

    My funny holiday memory is of me and my younger sis fighting for a ham bone after all the meat was eaten off. she ended up with it and hit me upside my forehead with it (still have the scar)

    My favourite tradition was Seranading christmas morning around my beautiful island of Grenada with my steel Orchestra Band. People would hear the sweet sounds of christmas music being played on steel drums and percussions and come out into the streets to sing and support us. Ahhhh…Those were the days!

  • Reply e4edem December 11 2013 at 7:05 pm

    love rose gold..My favourite holiday tradition is watching love actually and this christmas.
    edem247@hotmail.com

  • Reply Daria December 11 2013 at 7:09 pm

    The funniest moment on Christmas happened a couple years ago: we were all opening our presents next to the Christmas tree, when we smelled something was burning… we turned around and the candles had set fire to the decorations in the centre of the dining table!! We all ran around it untill my uncle took the decoration on fire and threw it in the pool out of the window. After one minute we couldn’t stop laughing haha! 🙂

    My email is dariab93@outlook.com

  • Reply Stéphy Unm December 11 2013 at 7:12 pm

    Hi Shirley !
    My favorite holidays was probably when I was with my family , that kind of moments that you never forget because all the people that you loves are around you and make you feel good and happy. Isn’t a “funny” holiday but, we spend some time together and share all the emotions we get during this year. Now I study away from my familly and I can tell this is not the same as well ; during this kind of moments , you reminds you that time and all the good time you spend with your family, with the traditional music, dishes ; all of that. I’m from Guadeloupe and it’s a little island in the Caribean, so i’m a little “new” about cold , and turkey and all of that.

    (Reggae.Bzh@hotmail.fr)

  • Reply anjesandlace December 11 2013 at 7:16 pm

    Hie Shirley first of all,I just wanted to let you know u r such an inspiration,I love your work ,u r amazing.so in Zimbabwe we really don’t have a tradition.anything goes.but most kids get new clothes n they get to visit their grandparents in the village.i miss that 🙂

    Blessings xxx

  • Reply Tara December 11 2013 at 7:21 pm

    ♥♥♥
    Greetings from Serbia.

    tufna@icloud.com

  • Reply Stéphy Unm December 11 2013 at 7:26 pm

    Hi Shirley !

    For me , my favorite holidays memory or tradition , is to spen time with peoples I love. Isn’t a big big thing for some people but it’s a lot to me. Holiday, initially is a rest, a little bit of time to calm yourself and reflect about what you can make for be happy , less negative , or things like that ; but now I’m realized that holiday, when you spend it with your family, peolple you loves ; it like you was doing this “therapy” , you smile with them , cry with them , sharing thoughts and all of that kind of stuff. For me especially, my mom’s dishes, my little brother’s jokes all that kind of stuff who can bring a light to your life and your holidays.
    Now I’m student, I live in France at 8000 km of my family , and I realized all of that, beacause I missing all that ; I’m here with this cold that I’ve never had when I was at home, in my Island (Guadeloupe); Clearly , I need my family with me to spend good holidays, I need my mom’s dishes, good companie.

    All off that is a good tradition to me : Be with my family, make my little therapy in another way , and begin a new way with all the negative things away from me , from us .

    (Reggae.Bzh@hotmail.fr)

  • Reply Wendy December 11 2013 at 7:27 pm

    Wow its gorgeous.
    My favorite holiday memory its just to walk outside with my mom on a chill dayy 🙂
    dydykim@hotmail.fr

  • Reply Mel Amaral December 11 2013 at 7:30 pm

    My favorite memory is having both my parents together (they are divorced now and haven’t seen my father in 10 years) drinking alcoholic eggnog dancing together. My mother is a plump stout woman and my father long and lean. She decided it was a good idea to preform the lift from dirty dancing.. Needless to say she jumped and toppled over my father causing them to fall on the tree and knocking it over
    melrunner1960@gmail.com

  • Reply Michelle van Dommelen December 11 2013 at 7:32 pm

    haha, my favourite holiday memory is actually kind of lame, about two years ago i was dating a boy for allready a really long time, it was a week before christmas but he still didn’t ask me for a real relationship and i really wanted it to be official at christmas. So i texted him: you have to ask me otherwise you can’t eat with our family with christmas. Well it worked, about 2 days later he asked me for a real relationship and celebrate christmas with us haha!

  • Reply Danieru December 11 2013 at 7:35 pm

    I think my funniest holiday memory was when I was really young & my dad & I decided to visit my cousins for a day, just to hang with them & that one day turned into 2,3,4 days lol & I didn’t bring a change of clothes because I didn’t think we’d be staying more than a couple hours & my cousins had to lend me clothes and find undies that could fit me because everywhere was closed since it was holiday time, so I spent 4 days just walking around in clothes and undies that were 10x my little size & they had to be pinned up or else they’d just swallow me whole lol. I eventually got clothes that could actually fit when the rest of the family came into the town to stay over. Hahaha I’d have to say looking back at that today reminds of the good times I had as a kid growing up & being around my entire family and relatives. I can’t wait to see what memories will be made this year :). Email address: danierumaiyazu@live.com

  • Reply 23 seconds December 11 2013 at 7:36 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is to DRINK PONCHE MEXICANO. I love mexican ponche, is so yummy!

    hypnotic.gaze@outlook.com

  • Reply Driven By Love! December 11 2013 at 7:37 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition is when everyone in our family is allocated a type of food to cook, and I always get the deserts of course. But last year there were a few surprises, namely the TURDUCKAN- you will know this as the chicken inside the duck inside the turkey. Sounds ok? absolutely horrific! My aunt made it and was getting the side-eye all the way through Christmas,but it was a great laugh after. It was the size of a whole animal.

  • Reply Driven By Love! December 11 2013 at 7:40 pm

    I also love being able to bake cakes at christmas, but the most funny thing is when u prepare something and your family force themselves to eat it, hah. Even though u can see them making distorted faces and then saying “its so rich, its lovely” aha. Christmas is always a laugh at my house especially when my uncle is around.

  • Reply دانتيلا December 11 2013 at 7:46 pm

    my favorite holiday tradition having my family together 🙂
    dena40@gmail.com

  • Reply Melanie Ann December 11 2013 at 7:54 pm

    Our family tradition is probably weird to most but it’s hilarious and so much fun for us. It all began when my mother got a video camera one year, when my sisters and I were younger. I was 7,Tiffany was 5, and Jasmine was 1 . My mother loves dancing and singing (she should be show business instead accounting, lol) , so naturally she thought up a dance routine. The song was Mariah Carey’s Fantasy. My mother danced, twirled, lip synced , and high kicked around our living room while Tiffany, and I awkwardly and completely off rhythm tried to mimic her every move( little Jazz just watched in amusement at dancing mommy and silly older siblings) . . So from that point on every year when we get together for Christmas we record ourselves dancing and lip synching to a song. Over the years it has gotten even more hilarious throughout the years with the addition of props, husbands/ boyfriends, and my nephews and niece. The rest of my family always look forward to our silly and very cheesy “music video”when they come over to my mom’s house:)

    Mel1987ann@gmail.com

  • Reply AK December 11 2013 at 7:54 pm

    My mother is from Antigua, so my favorite part of the holidays is when she makes treats and drinks from her childhood, like coconut tarts and ginger beer. I am remembering the taste as I type this. //Hungry

  • Reply fleur d'ebene December 11 2013 at 8:05 pm

    I always look forward to that Christmas arrives because it is the opportunity for me to come down in the South of France (Bordeaux) where I find my nephews who are so adorable. During the year I do not see them a lot because I lived in Paris and I do not have a lot of time to me. Then to spend time with them is a happiness, around a Christmas dinner which we prepare all together!! Yes all!! Even the two-year-old last one:) her name is Anna and she is incredible!!!
    Here is for Christmas I am with my nephews and they are magic moments!!

    Xoxo

    Ps: I’m French native, i’m really for my english 🙁
    email: lissia.mav@gmail.com

  • Reply Cindy Liberal December 11 2013 at 8:05 pm

    My favorite holiday is Christmas because of the message it represents. A few years back, my youth group decided to go Christmas caroling. We were hesitant because not everyone is kind to carolers, but we decided to take a chance. To our surprise, we successfully made it through 3 house and were very excited until we knocked on the door of Mr. Scrooge. Before we could finish the first line of “Oh Holy Night” we were ran off. Can you believe he threatened to call the cops.

    Since then we have avoided visiting the street where he lives.

    – Cindy L.
    P.S. I still love Christmas

  • Reply fleur d'ebene December 11 2013 at 8:06 pm

    I always look forward to that Christmas arrives because it is the opportunity for me to come down in the South of France (Bordeaux) where I find my nephews who are so adorable. During the year I do not see them a lot because I lived in Paris and I do not have a lot of time to me. Then to spend time with them is a happiness, around a Christmas dinner which we prepare all together!! Yes all!! Even the two-year-old last one:) her name is Anna and she is incredible!!!
    Here is for Christmas I am with my nephews and they are magic moments!!

    Xoxo

    Ps: I’m French native, i’m really for my english 🙁
    email: lissia.mav@gmail.com

  • Reply nixxy jamaica December 11 2013 at 8:07 pm

    good day shirley, my favorite holiday memories is when my sisters and i would make snow angels but we live in the tropics. it alwyz fun to roll around in the dirt
    and grass…

  • Reply Cindy Liberal December 11 2013 at 8:07 pm

    I forget to add my email, I shared my Christmas caroling story and Mr. Scrooge.

    Email: clibe001@gmail.com

    – Cindy L.

  • Reply Wendy P. December 11 2013 at 8:08 pm

    Hi, I love your blog !

    My fav holiday is spending time back home with my family. I love spending time with my cousins, we seldom meet up, but when we do, we’re the craziest bunch. We would sing like there’s no tomorrow in the car, say hello to strangers, cycle in the night, playing cards till morning, and many more ! Those are my childhood and it becomes like a tradition now. I really miss home now.

    Love,
    Wendy

    fish.wendy@live.com

  • Reply Trisha December 11 2013 at 8:08 pm

    I love decorating the Christmas tree with my family <3

  • Reply MissBlankson December 11 2013 at 8:08 pm

    Our family tradition is that, on Christmas eve we play a gift game, that starts with everyone buys a gift for around 1 pound and wraps it in. after that we use a dice and we play that the one who gets a six on the dice gets to steal someones gift that’s the first round and after that everyone is aloud to steal everyone’s gifts( mostly people goes after the big ones) and it goes on that for 15 min In the end it happens to be someone without any gifts… its so hilarious, because everyone rushes and laugh and its always funny when someone loses at this game.

  • Reply Ashley December 11 2013 at 8:10 pm

    A favorite holiday memory of mine is the road trip my mum and I took while living in Philadelphia to Atlantic City. There was supposed to be some sunshine, but by the time we arrived, the weather turned frigid and grey out – it was wintertime after all. I think I (mum stayed in the car) walked along the beach for all of five minutes before we ventured elsewhere. Anyhow, we took a stroll along the boardwalk. Being winter, there were no vendors open obviously, so I carried along some Ruffles potato chips b/c I didn’t know how far along we’d go. It was proving pretty uneventful. I spotted some gulls, so for “entertainment”, I scattered out a huge handful of said chips. It took all of a few seconds before they swarmed us. We power walked away, but they must have gobbled it all up pretty fast because they began to fly after us, squawking and taking dives. We were running and laughing, and I dropped the bag along the way, which made for a good diversion. My mum tried to be upset when we got back to the car since I didn’t forewarn her that I was going to throw food out. However, it was far too funny for her to hold any real anger.

    Thanks for allowing me to reminisce. My name’s Ashley and my e-mail is ashley.am2@gmail.com

  • Reply LauraJaneRose December 11 2013 at 8:11 pm

    My favourite tradition is just spending the day with my family 🙂

    Email: cadburyschocolate@hotmail.com

  • Reply twannywun December 11 2013 at 8:13 pm

    When my family stayed in a chalet in a holiday park in France but we were right on the edge of the park and along the back was a track along the edge of field and every day a farmer came past on his tractor peeking in all the windows
    karen s
    twannywun at hotmail dot com

  • Reply LauraJaneRose December 11 2013 at 8:13 pm

    My favorite tradition is just spending the day with my family 🙂

    Email: cadburyschocolate@hotmail.com

  • Reply Shawnell Tompkins December 11 2013 at 8:14 pm

    My funniest holiday memory was on Christmas day when I was like 10 and my little brother was 6. My mom and dad got my brother a my buddy doll which was okay but what they didn’t know was Mikey (little brother) 2 days before watched chucky’s (child’s play) movie! He knew he was not suppose to but he swore he was a big boy and that he knew it was not real. Well Christmas day he opens his gift and there was the my buddy doll! Right then things became real to him and he was terrified lol. My parents had to take to it back but I will say though in his defense the doll did resemble chucky. Lol

    P.S not sure if you are familiar with the My buddy doll but if your not look it up and you will see what mean lol

  • Reply Shawnell Tompkins December 11 2013 at 8:14 pm

    My funniest holiday memory was on Christmas day when I was like 10 and my little brother was 6. My mom and dad got my brother a my buddy doll which was okay but what they didn’t know was Mikey (little brother) 2 days before watched chucky’s (child’s play) movie! He knew he was not suppose to but he swore he was a big boy and that he knew it was not real. Well Christmas day he opens his gift and there was the my buddy doll! Right then things became real to him and he was terrified lol. My parents had to take to it back but I will say though in his defense the doll did resemble chucky. Lol

    P.S not sure if you are familiar with the My buddy doll but if your not look it up and you will see what mean lol

  • Reply s stamper December 11 2013 at 8:15 pm

    My fav christmas tradition…whole box of mint matchmakers for breakfast. Breakfast of champions. I always remind ‘santa’ that I would like some in my stocking.

    sianstamper@hotmail.co.uk

  • Reply Mercy Akadimah December 11 2013 at 8:17 pm

    Coming from a Ghanaian household, the funniest memory i have was one of my mum saying grace and my dad interrupting and with his pidgeon English said: “Oh fada. You know sey I dey thank you for my life and my children’s life. You know this. But dey wey my belle dey do and the way you don bless this food make it look sweet, i feel like we for chop first and give thanks later. Baba God i know you go understand” We all bursted into laughter and tears.. Since then we’ve kept the tradition of my mum saying grace before and my dad after lmao.

    maame.dimah@gmail.com

  • Reply N rudie December 11 2013 at 8:24 pm

    Hello Shirley,

    I live in Jamaica so of course there’s no snow – something I would bet my favourite snippet of the holiday season would include.

    Nevertheless, the family always manages to make each year memorable. But my favourite all-time memory would be last year 2012.
    It’s my family tradition to have “Pixie Exchange of Gifts” each year.
    And of course the usual gift from daddy and mum.

    I remember looking under the tree anxiously every single day that I woke up shaking the box before anyone caught me. Daddy had placed a gift under there for me and it was in a huuuge box. Mommy got one as well.

    We were super excited but puzzled and impatient.

    On that Christmas morning when we were opening the gifts I basically tore offf every single thing from that wrapper (Mum was more gentle – she has a thing for taking offf wrappers neatly #weirdiknow :))

    But to our surprise when we opened the boxes it was just stuff from around the house and TOOLS! daddy is an electrician and he just piled up his tools in the boxes as well as mum’s sewing kit and so on in those boxes! Everyone laughed ‘suh till!’

    Then he came in with the real gifts which were amazing.

    It may not seem like much but the feelings that morning were a variety – suspense, eagerness, surprise, elation, you name it. But most of all, family is what counts. And that was the best Christmas holiday I can remember.

    Once yuh have family, yuh nuh need notn’ more
    (Once you have family, you don’t need anything else.)

    God bless you Shirley.
    Happy holidays from my family to yours.

    email address: narnee17@hotmail.com

  • Reply dee beejay December 11 2013 at 8:26 pm

    My Funniest Holiday memory is traveling back home to the Caribbean to spend time with my family in 2011. I traveled on December 24th. My flight which was 4 hours long delayed for about 2 hours. I was an in-transit passenger so i missed my other flight to the islands. I spent all day at the airport in Barbados. when I did arrived at my family home I only had one hour left of Christmas day. I say was funny because looking back at it I can only laugh especially at the thing I found my self doing while at the airports, like using my lipstick to write “MERRY CHRISTMAS” on the mirrors in the airports bathrooms
    However, that was my favorite holiday because my boyfriend (now Fiancé) proposed to me the very next day (December 26th 2011. we’ve been together for six years and our wedding day will be Aug 22nd 2014). AS LONG AS I LIVE I WILL NEVER FORGET MY DECEMBER 2011 HOLIDAY!!
    my email address is belladeejay@hotmail.com

  • Reply Lynn Wacu December 11 2013 at 8:36 pm

    I’m Kenyan so my favourite holiday tradition is going to visit my grann with my extended family as she tells us stories
    Shes quite the family lady and very funny embarrassing her children hehe
    And I really love your blog:-)
    Email: waculynn94@gmail.com

  • Reply Poupie Pierre December 11 2013 at 8:43 pm

    My Favorite holiday tradition is cooking and eating with my family , laughing and enjoying our time together. Then after we eat, we sit down together and open up the presents. Good times!

    GaelleJ2010@yahoo.com

  • Reply Lynn Wacu December 11 2013 at 8:43 pm

    Im Kenyan so for us we go to the countryside to visit my granny
    She always tells us embarrassing stories about our parents
    Ps. Love your blog!!!!
    Email: waculynn94@gmail.com

  • Reply Vanessa Bobai December 11 2013 at 8:44 pm

    my favourite christmas tradition was when we where younger we would go back to the village to spend time with the grandparents an run around in our underwear, take baths in the stream and getting all the girls both old and young to partake in the family cookout but everything changed when the grandparents died… sobs
    nessabobai@gmail.com
    vanessa

  • Reply TeRea S. December 11 2013 at 8:44 pm

    My favorite holiday memories is the family Christmas parties my grandparents threw every year. We all would come dressed in our holiday ensembles, eat, laugh and just really enjoyed one another. Miss those days.

    Happy Holidays to you!!

    Te’Rea
    http://www.chic-n-everything.blogspot.com
    tereasmith@gmail.com

  • Reply Naomi Gabriella December 11 2013 at 8:49 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition is something that we do in Denmark, where we have rice pudding with an almond hidden in one of the portions. Whoever gets the almond gets a prize. But it’s always fun to not let on whether you have the almond or not and watch people stuff themselves after a massive dinner 🙂

    naomigabriellatc@hotmail.com

  • Reply FavouriteWorstNightmare December 11 2013 at 8:51 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition is my family all opening our presents in our pyjamas, while playing Christmas music with the fairy lights on!

    logged94@hotmail.co.uk

  • Reply Jamie December 11 2013 at 8:53 pm

    In my family, we have a tradition of staying up until midnight on Christmas Eve, so that we can shout “Merry Christmas” to each other and everyone gets to open one of their gifts. Then, we have a delicious family breakfast (yes, at midnight!). After breakfast, we all hurry off to bed to await the goodies that Santa will bring! ;-)I look forward to doing this absolutely every year, and I am so glad that I now get to share this tradition with my own children!
    🙂

    email: jnbaisden@gmail.com

  • Reply FavouriteWorstNightmare December 11 2013 at 8:53 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition is playing Christmas music with the fairy lights on, wearing pyjamas and exchanging presents with my family!

    logged94@hotmail.co.uk

  • Reply Ceci Ceci December 11 2013 at 8:55 pm

    There are so many funny holiday memories as well as traditions. My favorite is watching The Sound of Music with my parents and big sister every Christmas Eve. My sister and I no longer live at home, but no matter where we are, the four of us try to watch the movie 🙂

    -Carlene F.
    carlene_81@yahoo.com

  • Reply Ceci Ceci December 11 2013 at 8:57 pm

    There are so many funny holiday memories as well as traditions. My favorite is watching The Sound of Music with my parents and big sister every Christmas Eve. My sister and I no longer live at home, but no matter where we are, the four of us try to watch the movie 🙂

    -Carlene F.
    carlene_81@yahoo.com

    (P.S. You’re such an inspiration Shirley…)

  • Reply Shawnell Tompkins December 11 2013 at 8:58 pm

    Hello Shirley,

    My funniest holiday memory was on Christmas day. I was 10 and my little brother Mikey was 6. My parents thought it would be cool to get Mikey a my buddy doll, which would have been okay but what they didn’t know was that mikey 2 days before watched Chucky’s (Child’s Play) movie! He knew he was not allowed to watch it but he swore he would not be scared and he knew it was not real because he was a big boy. Well Christmas morning he opens his gift and there was the my buddy doll! He was traumatized! And to him thats when things got real lol. My parents had to take the doll back and they felt that since they already scared the Christmas spirit out of their child it was punishment enough for watching that movie. It was awesome lol. I Have to say though in his defense the my buddy doll did resemble Chucky a lot.

    P.S I’m not sure if you are familiar with the my buddy doll, if not look it up and you will see
    what I mean. Email: mz.tompkins@gmail.com

  • Reply Oumiboo D December 11 2013 at 9:05 pm

    A holiday tradition for me would be just going around the table during christmas dinner and talking about one high and one low of that year. I think it’s a great way to end a chapter and freshly start a new one

    oumiboo@gmail.com

  • Reply Sarah December 11 2013 at 9:08 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition on Christmas is eating Food!! and of course more importantly spending time with family and friends. We always have a very traditional Christmas lunch (with a lot of gravy!! everyone in my family always drowns their plate in it! Our family friends are all like Say whaaat! I couldn’t imagine having seafood for Christmas lunch it just wouldn’t work, throwing a shrimp on the barbie is so over rated! In my family anyway!

    Best wishes to you and your family this Christmas and New year Shirley. I hope Santa is good to you! I sincerely thank you if given the opportunity to win this beauty of a necklace.

    Email: flowerpaw@hotmail.com

  • Reply Ildikó Tóth December 11 2013 at 9:29 pm

    my favourite holiday tradition is maybe when I was little at Christmas night my Mum and I use to walk to my grandparents house for dinner. I know it doesen’t sound such a big deal but i remember most of the time it was snowing and poor mum had to pulled me after herself on a sled. we used to laugh a lot and it is a lovely memory to me and also kind of a tradition since we did this every year 🙂

  • Reply keisha adu ansre December 11 2013 at 9:46 pm

    My fave holiday tradition is getting new pi’s and a christmas jumper every year! I’ve already bought mine for this year, can’t wait!! Hope u have a good christmas too 🙂

    k.aduansre@live.com

  • Reply keisha adu ansre December 11 2013 at 9:47 pm

    my favourite christmas tradition is buying new pi’s and christmas jumpers every year!
    hope u have a great christmas shirley!!
    keishaxx@hotmail.co.uk

  • Reply chika December 11 2013 at 9:51 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is traveling home to Nigeria every christmas. I have stupid fun, christmas just is not the same anywhere else!

  • Reply itbeauty xo December 11 2013 at 9:53 pm

    Every year on the 1st of December my family start elf on the shelf. This is when one of Santa’s elves visit our home to watch over the children. Every night Eddie the elf will disappear to the North Pole and report back to Santa on the Children’s behaviour. The kids cannot touch Eddie or he will disappear for good. Every morning Eddie will be someone different in the house usually doing something cheeky (eating mince pies, opening presents).

    On 24th December Eddie will go back to the North Pole and if the kids have been super good while he has been there, they will get a special Christmas Eve Box. The box will have fresh PJs, Slippers, Bath bomb, teddy – Various things like that.

    It’s so exciting!

    My email address: taylor-rosejohnstone@hotmail.co.uk

  • Reply In the Blue December 11 2013 at 9:53 pm

    Thanks for doing the giveaway! My favorite holiday tradition has to be waking up to a delicious christmas day breakfast and sitting around with family taking it all in!

  • Reply Michelle Huynh December 11 2013 at 9:54 pm

    The funniest thing that has ever happened during the holiday season was when my mom forgot which present was for who! She wrapped up all of the gifts that she bought after a huge shopping trip and completely lost track of which gift was for which person.

    So she kind of just guesstimated which present belonged to who and when Christmas came around the corner we were shocked by what it was that we got from my mom.

    My brother ended up getting my PJs and Victoria Secret things and my dad got my brother’s sweater (which is 5x smaller than my dad’s body size), and I got my brother’s briefs. It was definitely a lesson learned and now we still laugh about it to this day.

    Thank you for the amazing opportunity to win such a stunning necklace. I hope you have a wonderful and safe holiday break!

    Michelle
    michelleesque@gmail.com

  • Reply ali December 11 2013 at 10:05 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition would probably be my little brother waking up way to early on Christmas morning and proceeding to wake up the rest of the house since he couldn’t open his presents until we were all downstairs! email is kopined@yahoo.com

  • Reply jennifer june December 11 2013 at 10:13 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition has to be the old new pj and slippers one. The majority of girls I know (not as many boys hehe) have the same tradition where new PJs and slippers are worn on crimbo eve so you’re nice and smart for santa. Matching pjs when we were young was cute.. I’m 23 now and my sister is 17 and we still match every christmas eve hehe
    As cringey as it is, I love it 🙂 and it makes for cute photos <3

    jennifer.horsburgh@gmail.com

  • Reply Tina Walusimbi December 11 2013 at 10:19 pm

    My birthday is dec 16 so my mom would alternate my gifts between xmas and my bday each year. I think i was 10 or 11, i woke up at night to take a sneak pic of what my xmas present would be. I opened the package and my mom had wrapped and empty box of tooth paste with the message “gotcha” lol. I felt so silly cause i knew i should have waited but couldn’t. I think she ended up getting me a game boy. And boy was i relieved.

    Enjoy the holidays Shirley
    gloria564@hotmail.com

  • Reply VaVaViolet December 11 2013 at 10:34 pm

    A holiday tradition I and my family have is of course, a good old tin of quality streets to enjoy while watching the Christmas episodes of Doctor Who and Eastenders!x

    sophblackman@hotmail.com

  • Reply Queen Iman December 11 2013 at 10:41 pm

    My funniest holiday memory is eating pot of gold chocolates blindfolded. That way no one knew if they had a disgusting one! the facial reactions were priceless lol

  • Reply sexliesandvideotape December 11 2013 at 10:48 pm

    Hey shirley,

    so my christmas story comes from last year, and was very funny to everyone else.

    Myself and my 9 year old cousin (post our huge christmas dinner) decided to play pranks on each other for the rest of the day such as drawing on each others faces whilst the other was sleeping, hiding each other christmas presents, etc which was all hilarious until my cousin stole my phone, filmed me during my 3rd full stomach christmas day snooze and threw a snowball at my head, so naturally I in a rage ran after him slipped over and sprained my ankle and ended up in A&E for the rest of the afternoon at 20 years old for chasing a child hahaha

    Happy Holidays 🙂

    samarabuchanan@live.com

  • Reply Sweet DayLites December 11 2013 at 10:49 pm

    Hello!!!!
    My favorite holiday tradition is staying up trying to listen in on all of the grown up conversation after I was sent off to bed. My mother and grandmother would sometimes catch me asleep on the steps since I was trying to peek around the corner looking for Santa! lol

    Best Wishes and Happy Holidays!
    – Jasmine C.
    (heavenlyjasmine@gmail.com)

  • Reply Leshelle Reese December 11 2013 at 10:50 pm

    I was almost arrested (my dad was) after he decided that he would cut a live tree down for me out of a park…didn’t seem like a bad plan to the cops showed; that’s when I found out it was illegal, but I’m pretty sure my dad knew the entire time. Bought a live tree the next day:)

  • Reply sexliesandvideotape December 11 2013 at 11:14 pm

    Hey shirley,

    I tried to post my funny christmas story but it didn’t work so I here I go again haha.

    so last year I as a responsible 20 year old human being decided that it would be a great idea to get into a prank war with my nine year old cousin(genius I know).

    So it started off innocently enough: hidden christmas presents, sabotaging monopooly games, drawing on each others faces during the post christmas dinner binge sleep etc etc.

    Anyway this young man ended the “game” when he filmed himself throwing a snowball at my snoring face during my 3rd nap of the day and I whilst running after him to exact my revenge went sliding into a wall and sprained my ankle ending up in A&E for the afternoon hahaha I was annoyed until I got back and saw everyone wanted to sign my bandages and couldn’t help bursting out laughing!

    Happy Holidays 🙂

    samarabuchanan@live.com

  • Reply Jess December 11 2013 at 11:14 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition is putting up the Christmas tree and decorations with my family. We will always spend hours getting everything just right, it wouldn’t be complete without Christmas music playing in the background and of course a giant tin of chocolates. 🙂

    My email is jessicathomas133@gmail.com

  • Reply EM December 11 2013 at 11:22 pm

    The necklace is beautiful!

    One of my favorite memories is receiving letters from “santa.” They were always written in this beautiful cursive. I wish I had them today. I do love thinking back about how excited I was that Santa would handwrite me a letter 😀

  • Reply Niki aa December 11 2013 at 11:23 pm

    my funniest holiday memory happened when i was a little kid XD, i heard about that our lovely Santa is coming down from a fireplace. However, the place i used to lived does not comes with a chimney or fireplace, so i tried to figure out ALL the holes in my apartment. And i assigned each of my family member to wait for Santa at their position >.<… AND MY DAD FINALLY DRESS UP AS SANTA coming in from the front down XD

  • Reply Crystal C December 12 2013 at 12:28 am

    My favorite holiday tradition is having breakfast at my sister’s house on Christmas morning. She had twins in January and I can’t wait to share their first Christmas with them.

  • Reply Nicola Parkinson December 12 2013 at 12:33 am

    Our Christmas traditions… We always get our new Christmas pjs on on Christmas eve and bake cakes and biscuits and we open the big tins of chocolates when the soaps start. We also always go downstairs on Christmas morning together. So excited this year as it’s my sons first Christmas! Can’t wait to start our own family traditions as well as carrying on the old ones 😀

    My email address is nikiniknak@hotmail.co.uk

    Niki x

    nikiniknak.blogspot.co.uk

  • Reply Alana Mullen December 12 2013 at 12:33 am

    Favourite holiday tradition has to be watching A Muppet’s Christmas Carol. No matter what is happening outside of the festive period, sticking this film on makes me forget everything and just feel so happy! 🙂

    My email address is alanagetshealthy@gmail.com

  • Reply Eden Simpson December 12 2013 at 12:45 am

    Ok, So at the time it really was not funny, but looking back on it, it was! So when i was little some age under 9, my mum bought me this beautiful advent candle. Every day i would carefully light and watch the candle burn down a day and blow it out until the next. It was a real labour of love. Until on Christmas eve, when we lit it and with all the excitement completely forgot about it and it burnt down to what should have been lit on Christmas day. Needless to say, i cried and was devastated, i had been so careful as to make sure it only burnt down one day. Now i look back and laugh!

    styleandbeautyforless.blogspot.co.uk

  • Reply Debbie December 12 2013 at 1:04 am

    Unfortunately,I don’t have any funny holiday stories to tell since my family never really celebrated any holiday
    . I still hope to win :).

  • Reply Jessica Sneed December 12 2013 at 1:19 am

    My drunk aunt giving crazy off clues when it’s her turn to give the clues when we all get together to play taboo. One time the word was “nightmare” and she keeps saying peanut butter. And when we finally gave up she said “y’all don’t get nightmares when you eat peanut butter?” lol we were dying.

    Jessica.Sneed91@gmail.com

  • Reply ZKAN242 December 12 2013 at 1:25 am

    My favorite holiday tradition is giving back in any way, shape or form. One doesn’t know how much a kind act can impact a persons life ! So thank you for giving back Shirley !k_nixon242@hotmail.com

  • Reply TallChica December 12 2013 at 1:30 am

    My favorite holiday tradition? Hmm…that’s a hard one. Maybe I’d say my anti-holiday tradition. My sister an I absolutely do not like Christmas music. The Grinch in us comes out to play when we hear any mention of snow, chestnuts near any sort of fire, and reindeer. Why? Our African Christmases looked nothing like that!! How can you talk about snow when it is 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside? That being said, around July, we’d sit in the house all alone during school break and binge on the cheesiest Christmas Lifetime Channel movies–hence the tradition of Christmas in July. 😀 But Christmas movies at Christmas time? Sacrilege!

  • Reply Wieteke December 12 2013 at 1:37 am

    My favourite christmas memory is of my father, reading the poem I made for him. He wasn’t too happy when he read out loud that he didn’t need much inspiration for his jokes, as he only comes up with one new joke a year. It still makes my family laugh!! My email address is wietekevonk@hotmail.com

  • Reply Queen Emaculate December 12 2013 at 2:06 am

    Alright so i went to ghana 2 years ago and you know how tradition goes we kill goats, chicken etc for Christmas, so before taking the goat to get it slaughtered, me trying to me all white, decided to take a photo with the goat, after taking the picture i decided to check it out knowing, not knowing i let go of the rope so what did the goat do run away, 🙁 i went upstairs to tell my mama and this is the exact words she said ” if you know what is good for you, you better chase that goat or else no Christmas for everyone ” mind you i didnt even know the area where i was at. got my sister and cousins to help me find this goat, searched and sweated for about 30mintues and of cause the young ones in the town decided to join, it was a fun experience. i must be honest though when the people were killing that goat the joy i had eh hmmm wicknedness making me run like a mad person.
    x Eme Emaculate ( thats my name on facebook, incase i win i can give you my email address. due to privacy thanks shilz x

  • Reply Florence Tee-Jay December 12 2013 at 3:33 am

    My best christmas memory has to be when my mum was just cooking up a normal african feast and my sis walked in and was gonna taste some of the jollof rice that had been cooked prior and my mum literally slapped her hand with the wooden spoon, this may sound cheesy and fake, but it happens in movies so for it to happen right in front of me in an african house especially, literally made my christmas! So sad!

    florenceiyamore@yahoo.co.uk

  • Reply Abbi N December 12 2013 at 3:54 am

    My favorite tradition is chritmas dinner with my family then exchanging gifts promptly after! lol

    abbi_jojo@hotmail.com

  • Reply Kimberley Laidler December 12 2013 at 4:29 am

    my favorite holiday tradition is going over my familys house opening presents and then relaxing and having fun by playing spoons! a fun game that came from i dont know where lol

    laidlerkimberleya@gmail.com

  • Reply sodonnamarie December 12 2013 at 4:48 am

    My favorite holiday tradition is singing with my family! Every christmas we would compete against each other in Singstar. My mom, the diva of them all, had the worst vocals, and she always went for Whitney Houston’s song “I Wanna Dance with Somebody. ” Lawd, even my cat covered his ears! Haha! But it was all good fun, and I enjoyed every single minute of it! Love her confidence! x
    – Simone

    simrob127@gmail.com

  • Reply Lezzle December 12 2013 at 6:52 am

    My absolute funniest holiday memory was the year my family decided to go up to Lake Tahoe for Christmas with a bunch of family friends. We rented a cabin and crammed 5 families into it. On Christmas morning, my sister was really excited to go out in the snow that the she ran out the door and jumped into a huge pile of powdery snow. But since it was so powdery, she just disappeared into it and ended up sitting 5 feet under the surface of the snow. She had to tunnel her way out in order to get out of the snow. And of course, she had snow all her her hair and down her clothes. It was quite unfortunate for her but hilarious for me.

    I hope your Christmas this year is filled with amazing new memories. Happy holidays!
    chiang.lesley@gmail.com

  • Reply Sincerely, Christine December 12 2013 at 7:18 am

    Usualyfor Christmas we are having cake and when I was 6 or 7 I dropped the cake on the floor and no one saw me, so I decided just to pick up everything from the floor and no one is going to notice. This didn’t happen:)
    kristin.n.pavlova@gmail.com

  • Reply Onyinyechi Uwadoka December 12 2013 at 8:06 am

    My funniest holiday memory is the time when my extended family and I decided to have a picnic (this was in Nigeria so there is no winter) and for some reason everyone thought the other person was going to bring the actual food and so we got there with lots and lots to drink but no food -_-
    It was soo funny but a good time over all.

    email: ouwadoka945@yahooo.com

  • Reply Onyinyechi Uwadoka December 12 2013 at 8:09 am

    My favourite holiday memory so far is the time when I got a surprise visit from my best friend because I study abroad and I couldn’t go home for Christmas that year.
    It was amazing and definitely one of my best holiday memory 🙂

    email : ouwadoka@yahoo.com

  • Reply Onyinyechi Uwadoka December 12 2013 at 8:10 am

    ouwadoka945@yahoo.com

  • Reply Andiswa Gcolotela December 12 2013 at 8:18 am

    my favourite holiday tradition is when we prepare all the salads and foods we can think of (mostly those we don’t get to enjoy during the year and are therefore reserved as Christmas luxuries), put them in bowls and the whole family goes to the beach to enjoy the day. We do this mostly for Boxing Day (16 Dec) and New Year’s Day! Everyone is always excited and looking forward to that.
    andiswa.gcolotela@gmail.com

  • Reply tendo mariata December 12 2013 at 8:22 am

    hey shirlkat.my all time xmas radition is goin to the local dance festivalin the village and leave all the modernity behind.
    mariam_tendo@yahoo.co.uk

    kind regards
    mariata

  • Reply Ariana Georgieva December 12 2013 at 9:11 am

    My favorite Christmas tradition is *of course* spending the holidays with my family. They live in Germany and I’m studying Marketing in Bulgaria. So Christmas is the only holiday we are spending together. Every year I’m looking forward to finish my lessons and exams and to book my fligt to Germany. 🙂
    ariana.georgieva@gmail.com

  • Reply tendo mariata December 12 2013 at 9:19 am

    hey shirlkat,
    there is this holiday tradition we have ,wen we go to the village,they bring a mobile disco which we all attand and mingle with the ocal pipo and leave all he modernity behind,its fun.
    lotsa love
    mariata
    mariam_tendo@yahoo.co.uk

  • Reply Traz Mills December 12 2013 at 10:10 am

    Oh yes honey…Back home in JAmaica, every year we would get up extremely early on Christmas eve and start cleaning with excitement for Grandmarket, which is the late night party /gift buying event which last waaaay into the next morning and the going home and waking up on Christmas morning and heading out to church services. Then after that we would cone home and prepare the annual Christmas dinner and gift giving celebrations. All this makes ne wish I were back home now. 🙂

  • Reply Traz Mills December 12 2013 at 10:13 am

    Oh yes honey…Back home in JAmaica, every year we would get up extremely early on Christmas eve and start cleaning with excitement for Grandmarket, which is the late night party /gift buying event which last waaaay into the next morning and the going home and waking up on Christmas morning and heading out to church services. Then after that we would cone home and prepare the annual Christmas dinner and gift giving celebrations. All this makes ne wish I were back home now. 🙂 My email address is ronniefolk34@flail.com

  • Reply Viola (Lue) December 12 2013 at 10:17 am

    My favorite holiday tradition is watching Donald Duck at three pm (it’s a Swedish tradition) and afterwards having christmas dinner at my grandmother’s house!!

  • Reply jana December 12 2013 at 11:16 am

    What I love most about Christmas traditions is that no matter what happened over the year, we all try to stick to them. I don’t live with my parents anymore and my brother is visiting them only over weekends so it’s sometimes a bit challenging so see each other but I can be sure that we will go for last minute Christmas shopping together in the morning of 24 December. I so much look forward to it. He’s turning 21 early next year so it’s more of a grown-up style and I love it so much. Xox

  • Reply Debbie Jackson December 12 2013 at 11:35 am

    My favorite memory is my dad throwing whole walnuts on the roof to be reindeer trcks…….if they fell in the snow they were DROPPINGS

    roddjackson at hotmail dot com

  • Reply Imogen December 12 2013 at 11:48 am

    My favourite holiday tradition is making homemade mince pies with my dad on christmas eve! We do it every year and have done since I was a little girl, it is great fun and a great way to spend quality time together 🙂 we put on the elvis gospel album and sing along!

    arendezvouswithyou@gmail.com

  • Reply Renate December 12 2013 at 11:50 am

    This is absolutely gorgeous! The first thing that came to mind was the New Years fortune tradition my family has, especially because I will be going home for the Holidays (I’m Latvian living in Denmark) and my boyfriend will be going with me for the first time (meaning – for holidays – we were there in the summer also).
    Every 31st, around 11 pm my family gathers in the kitchen and my dad has laid out horseshoe figures made of tin (they can be bought in the shops for this purpose), we pick one and then melt that in an old pot over fire (we have a gas stove). Once the figure is completely melted and is liquid – we drop the contents on the pot in a large bowl of cold water. The metal quicly dries and gets an interesting, unique shape. We then take it out and try to figure out – what does it look like. If you see a ship, for example, you might expect a trip or a journey etc., it’s just fun. When everybody’s done, we return back to the living room, turn the lights off and set up one lamp close to a plain wall – where we hold the figure up and try to see the shape of the shadow projecting on the wall and, again, try to read what expects us in the following year.
    After that we head downtown to be there in time for the 00:00 fireworks 🙂
    This might sound crazy, but it’s a fun, harmless tradition (if you’re careful with the melting process!) and I can’t wait to show this to my boyfriend 🙂
    Good luck to everybody!

    Renate

    renaatte@gmail.com

  • Reply That Special Glow* December 12 2013 at 12:16 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition is being a secret santa and buying a gift for a random person (out of the people that I know) who is not expecting it- it’s always great to see the reaction on their face when they get the gift but don’t know who it’s from… But I actually have a new tradition that I think I want to start and that is volunteering at a soup kitchen. I see lots of people doing it ( I’ve only done it twice) but I’d’d like to make it a yearly thing ^_^

  • Reply That Special Glow* December 12 2013 at 12:18 pm

    Forgot my Email- dapaahaa@gmail.com 🙂 Thanks!

  • Reply La Filinegra December 12 2013 at 12:21 pm

    Hello Shirley,

    My favorite family traditions are watching The Grinch in the morning with my dad, stepmom & siblings when I spend Christmas morning with them. Second, going to midnight mass with my mom and & stepdad every Christmas , staying up late to open one present and having a Christmas sing-off to our favorite Christmas songs.

    email: lafilinegra@gmail.com
    Happy Holidays

  • Reply Elena December 12 2013 at 12:34 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is this thing we do in Spain in New Year’s Eve, when its about to be 12 o clock we eat twelve grapes, one per second, in the last minute of the year, so we start the new year with our mouths full of grapes and it is always so funny! Also here in Spain this tradition is supposed to bring good luck for the next of the year, and it’s always fun! 🙂

    elena_almazan94@hotmail.com 🙂 great giveaway!

  • Reply venting_artist December 12 2013 at 12:47 pm

    My favorite holiday tradition is having a christmas brunch with all my family. Everyone helps cook something and then we all sit down and watch the christmas parade

  • Reply venting_artist December 12 2013 at 12:48 pm

    oops forgot my email abigailstella@gmail.com

  • Reply TryN2FitN December 12 2013 at 1:04 pm

    Our holiday tradition consists of me cooking all night so the fam can wake to Christmas dinner for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We gather all the gifts together to open them as we watch Christmas movies. None of this really matters though because the best part is getting to be together. Our busy schedules does not allow us this opportunity to often.

  • Reply TryN2FitN December 12 2013 at 1:05 pm

    Our holiday tradition consists of me cooking all night so the fam can wake to Christmas dinner for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We gather all the gifts together to open them as we watch Christmas movies. None of this really matters though because the best part is getting to be together. Our busy schedules does not allow us this opportunity to often.

  • Reply Tate December 12 2013 at 1:10 pm

    Hi Shirley,

    I love your style, it’s so chic and elegant!

    I am half English and half Dutch and don’t get to see my family in England very often, except for Christmas, which is why this holiday is so important to me.

    When I was little I used to love lying under the Christmas tree and staring up at the beautiful lights and decorations. It felt really magical.

    Hope you have a great holiday!

    Tate
    x

    50rose50tulip@gmail.com

  • Reply Liyana Zakaria December 12 2013 at 1:31 pm

    My favorite tradition would be when my family and i would seek forgiveness from each other for our fights, wrongdoings or misunderstandings from the past year so we could start anew 🙂

  • Reply Liyana Zakaria December 12 2013 at 1:33 pm

    My favorite tradition would be when my family and I would seek forgiveness from each other for all our fights, wrongdoings and misunderstanding throughout the past year so we could start anew 🙂

  • Reply Liyana Zakaria December 12 2013 at 1:35 pm

    forgot my email: nliyana26@yahoo.com.

    Happy holidays, Shirley!

  • Reply QA Anderson December 12 2013 at 1:44 pm

    Decorating the dining table with fruit, nuts, chocolates and peppermint candies. This is one of the most exciting traditions my mother did/does even until this day. I continue to do this at home with my husband and children, which gives them a double whammy of all the wonderful treats and goodies. I’m sure they will go on to continue this tradition someday!!

    sammyosmuff@yahoo.com

  • Reply QA Anderson December 12 2013 at 1:45 pm

    Decorating the dining table with fruit, nuts, chocolates and peppermint candies. This is one of the most exciting traditions my mother did/does even until this day. I continue to do this at home with my husband and children, which gives them a double whammy of all the wonderful treats and goodies. I’m sure they will go on to continue this tradition someday!!

    quateelaanderson@gmail.com

  • Reply Kim December 12 2013 at 2:46 pm

    beautiful!! My favorite holiday tradition is opening a gift on Christmas eve in new PJs and watching the Santa Clause!

    skyejaden at gmail dot com

  • Reply Esther Ivy December 12 2013 at 2:50 pm

    We don’t have too many Christmas traditions but usually we just spend time together like everybody else out there and enjoy each other’s company.

    Email: imbula94@gmail.com

  • Reply Josie Aman December 12 2013 at 3:06 pm

    My rfavorite holiday tradition is praying with my mum on New Year’s Evefor my dad and brother who have been in the States for the past 18years. after that we call them to wish them a Happy New Year and there are always tears shared and there is always the hope of them getting their green cards so they can come home the new year.

    josieaman@gmail.com

  • Reply Jummy December 12 2013 at 3:06 pm

    Christmas is our favorite holiday like most people. We celebrate it to the fullest in my house. Our favorite christmas tradition is the list of activities that we do on Christmas eve and christams day. We have done it in the same order for about 5 years. On Christams eve, we make a gingerbread house with the family, them we have a cookie decorating party. At night, we all open one gift(Christmas pajamas) so we can wear it to sleep and wake up with it on Christmas day. Then on Christmas day, we have a Christmas pajamas party, open gifts and watch Christmas movies all day. It is so much fun and my boys look forward to it!
    my email address is jadeyemi3@gmail.com

  • Reply Josie Aman December 12 2013 at 3:09 pm

    My fav holiday tradition is praying with my mum on New Year’s Eve for my dad and brother who have been in the States for the past 18 years. We always call them when the clock strikes twelve and there is always tears shed and the hope of them getting their green cards so they can come home the new year.

    josieaman@gmail.com

  • Reply Bianca Mayes December 12 2013 at 3:40 pm

    The funniest holiday memory I have is when I fell asleep on the middle of the floor all night! I was helping my family members push the tree through the door. After we got the tree settled in and started decorating it, my parents asked if I could go underneath and put water in the dish. After I went under I started itching, turns out I’m allergic to Christmas trees! I took some Benedryl and wanted to get started on decorating with the rest of my family, but ended up falling asleep in the middle of the floor and what’s worse, THEY LEFT ME THERE! LOL I woke up to the tree finished

  • Reply Naomi December 12 2013 at 3:44 pm

    As kids, we’d all stay in our pajamas all day on Christmas morning. We’d have cinnamon rolls and watch Home Alone or It’s a Wonderful Life while opening gifts. Then we lazy about and have a late lunch feast in the mid afternoon of turkey or ham and all the fixings. Gosh I miss those days!

    narehart22 (at) gmail (dot) com

  • Reply Alexis Jackson December 12 2013 at 3:45 pm

    I haven’t been celebrating the holidays for a very long time. Just a few years ago I started to do so because my father banned me from celebrating because it was against the kind of religion he wanted to practice. He wanted to impress the people who were of that religion. But it didn’t last very long. So now I really don’t have a holiday tradition or funny holiday memories. But I’m trying to make a tradition to where we put up our Christmas tree after Thanksgiving, listen to very classic holiday music in the beginning of December and listen to recent or up to date holiday music towards the end of December. It’s very little things I know but I think eventually we will build some valuable memories and traditions.

    lovinlovelylillexy@gmail.com

  • Reply Rachel December 12 2013 at 3:48 pm

    rgtrusty@gmail.com

    I think my funniest Christmas memory had to be when my dad fell from his footstool whilst hanging Christmas lights on year. It sounds terrible, I know! But we were all cracking up about it, particularly because he tried to go over the top with the lighting that year.. I love that the holidays always brings us together — especially in moments of pure hilarity.

  • Reply Sophie December 12 2013 at 5:36 pm

    Wow that necklace is gorgeous!! When it gets to December my family get all the Christmas decorations out and get into the festive spirit! I hope you have a wonderful festive season Shirley!x

    sophietumelty@hotmail.co.uk

  • Reply Tsahai December 12 2013 at 5:39 pm

    Hey Shirley,

    Happy Holidays!! Hope you and your family have a great and blessed one. xoxoxo

    So my favorite holiday tradition is after Christmas dinner all my nieces and nephews usually put on a karaoke show. It’s so much fun and great to see the kids just being together and appreciating Christmas and being together as a family.

    Shari Tsahai
    email mzsunshinecurls85@gmail.com

  • Reply Brittany December 12 2013 at 5:51 pm

    My family’s from the Caribbean, so every holiday we invite the family and other friends over to someone’s house. The women tend to stay in the kitchen and talk and gossip as they cook; the men go outside and skin up with each other, and the younger kids run around acting all crazy! We play Reggae/Calypso music way up in volume; it’s loud, and chaotic, and really fun with all the funny accents and mannerisms everyone brings with them, lol. I love the holidays. 😀

  • Reply Doreen Perekpo December 12 2013 at 6:21 pm

    my family holiday tradition is singing songs on Christmas morning and praying together,cooking the meal together and sharing to some neighbors and then we spend the rest of the day watching DSTV Christmas movies.I pray for long life so by by next year i would add visiting the orphanage homes.I love christmass

  • Reply be497d40-6068-11e3-a33c-000bcdca4d7a December 12 2013 at 7:09 pm

    When we were all kids, my cousins and I took a picture of us all at Christmas sitting on the stairs. 10 years later, when we were all adults, we decided to recreate the photo, sitting on laps and everything. It was great.

    My email address is mjellie@ksc.keene.edu

  • Reply Tomiwa Oko-Osi December 12 2013 at 7:49 pm

    My favourite Holiday tradition is peeling oranges and burning it with the family whilst watching films like Home Alone, The Grinch and so on. It is so nice as the house smells all nice and Christmassy!
    It is a fun tradition, you should try it, and also add some cinnamon.
    Enjoy, and hope I win!
    xx

  • Reply Ericka Ize December 12 2013 at 8:22 pm

    My favourite tradition is really gathering around the dining table and eating my Christmas dinner with my family.It’s such a joy being around the people you love and care for, I truly don’t take it for granted.

  • Reply Ericka Ize December 12 2013 at 8:23 pm

    Sorry my email is ericaizegbu@yahoo.co.uk thanks for the kind giveaway.

  • Reply Nomena RANOHA December 12 2013 at 9:19 pm

    Our tradition, when I still lived with my parents in Madagascar, was to have new dresses and shoes to attend the mass. I always looked forward to Christmas because it meant family reunion – prayer and new dress / shoe. We didn’t have the tradition of gift … though new clothes and family are already the best. But what I mean is that there is no suspense as here in Europe about the gifts we will receive. Now I live in France, when I buy a beautiful dress for any occasion I remember those times.
    Thank you for sharing your advice and ideas, I am completely and literally in love with your style 😉
    Sorry for my English, I hope to visit your country several times to better learn the wonderful language of Shakespeare

  • Reply Toyosi Omishola December 12 2013 at 9:45 pm

    Hey Shirley 🙂 I guess my family tradition every holiday is falling asleep after a huge Christmas dinner and waking up ready for dessert and pressies!!!! Also watching the Christmas episode of eastenders (we may fail to watch it during the year but on christmas day we always catch up lol)

    Happy Holidays 🙂 x

    toyosi_96@hotmail.co.uk

  • Reply Joy December 12 2013 at 9:49 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition is spending time with my family, opening presents by the fire and helping my mum to cook 🙂 x
    dearjoy(at)live.co.uk

  • Reply esther edeh December 12 2013 at 10:11 pm

    its been 3yrs now since i spent Christmas with my family…i really miss spending it with them…one of my favorite Christmas holidays was about 5 Christmases ago ,the whole family was present ,i mean the extended family ,and everyone in it ..the first day we all arrived at the family house,twas so much fun that i can forget so soon…so many catching ups to do,love was really in the air…there was so much to eat , drink n talk about..we stayed up till late night talking about virtually everything,especially amongst the teenagers in the family.The next Sunday after Christmas we had the family thanksgiving in church,i think that was one of the most emotional moments,some cried(i mean tears of joy tho)lol , some laughed ,some rejoiced….to top the excitement,one of my aunt was getting married 3 days after Christmas day..there were lots of preparations,laughter’s, smiles and all ,it was really an awesome period for me…..season greetings dear Shirley

  • Reply Patti December 12 2013 at 10:19 pm

    My fav holiday tradition is decorating the tree while drinking hot chocolate and listening to Christmas music!

  • Reply Patti December 12 2013 at 10:20 pm

    Oops! Forgot to leave my email! lebl9077@bellsouth.net

  • Reply LOIS December 12 2013 at 10:22 pm

    backing cookies with my little brother 🙂
    Love Lois xxx

  • Reply Marquiesha Collins December 12 2013 at 10:33 pm

    This is beautiful and I’m pretty sure all of us could use some luck and good fortune. My favorite holiday tradition is right after Thanksgiving every year since I could remember I would always help my mom decorate our Christmas tree. This year she decided she didn’t want one

  • Reply Sarah Elenes December 12 2013 at 11:17 pm

    Our favorite thing to do on Christmas eve is, after eating all the turkey and delicious food, we order sushi and we sit down to watch the local channel. It is funny because everybody is like having a break from all the partying thing, and then we go back on dancing and drinking and all that. I love that part of the night!

  • Reply Rayray Cartucci December 12 2013 at 11:38 pm

    funniest holiday memory had to be when my best friends mom bought a beautiful and expensive old home..she was so proud! My best friends little brother wanted to put the Christmas tree by himself while we were all outside having a bonfire.When we came in we quickly saw the tree and realized within minutes he had nailed the tree stand to the floor.He used soooo many nails…he ruined some of the antique wooden floor boards. We still talk about that

  • Reply Tianna December 12 2013 at 11:58 pm

    One year, my little sister and I decided to sneak into my parents’ closet, where we knew they hid our Christmas presents. Well, you can imagine how upset my Mom was when she found us in the closet going through all the presents!

    Have a wonderful Christmas, Shirley, and thank you for the giveaway!

    My e-mail: primaballerina_x3@hotmail.com

  • Reply DeSandra December 13 2013 at 1:03 am

    Happy Holiday’s Shirley,
    Christmas is my favorite holiday; the cold, the lights, the hot coco, and warm socks makes me gitty with joy. Me and my good friends of the past 7 years have made it a tradition to get together for the holidays. We meet a friend’s house, who goes all out for the holidays. We pick a theme, this year its a Soulful Christmas dinner with fried chicken, corn bread, green beans, candied yams,and baked macaroni (YUMMY). (Last year it was Italian). After we eat as a family we proceed to our gift exchange and play games, talk, drink, talk some more, and drink. LOL. Oh how I love the holidays.

    email: desandrat@gmail.com

  • Reply Beatrice James December 13 2013 at 1:50 am

    Heyyy, heyy :D, I NEVER KNEW YOU HAD A BLOG :0. Annyways, My favorite holiday tradition is going to church and spending the holidays with my church fam! It so much fun especially when we break out into our 9ja culture and just have a blast. I am so luck to be blessed with my amazing church family.

  • Reply Lippy Likes December 13 2013 at 8:27 am

    Oh that necklace is beautiful, I want it so badly that I may have to buy it if I dint win lol.

  • Reply Janné December 13 2013 at 10:15 am

    My funniest Christmas memory has probably got to be me running downstairs into my older brother’s room really early in the morning and shaking my long, thick African braids in his face to wake him up on Christmas morning. If you’ve ever watched the Dave Chapelle Rick James skit (must see) you’ll know exactly what I mean and how/ why I did it!

    Although I found it absolutely hilarious (I’m quite the clown in my household) he did not see the humour in it, but he certainly does now looking back on it.

  • Reply Mayokun Ogungbola December 13 2013 at 10:40 am

    This just came to mind and I have to post it, just cause it caused me to start laughing uncontrollably. I was about 5 and we went to spend christmas at my aunt and uncles… My aunt had to have everything perfect since this was the first year that the holidays were at her house. Well my uncle had brought in this HUGE tree. I mean the thing was gynormous….. anyway… he set it up and my aunt decorated it. They had really tall ceilings in their living room so that is where the tree went. well, my aunt had the decorations perfect and there was a space that was open at the top of the wall and my uncle decided that the tree needed one last thing.. he went out to the garage and brought back in cans of flocking…. you know the fake snow in a can…. he climbed the wall and covered the tree… well, i was standing across the room looking at the tree and i noticed that an ornament was crooked, I went over and adjusted it…. that tiny little ornament set the whole huge tree off balance….. all that I remember is my dad and uncle grbbing my arms and jerking me out of the way just as the tree came crashing down right on the spot where I was at. We have pictures…. my aunt is crying… the rest of us are laughing. there are lights and ornaments everywhere and we are all covered in white powder…. the whole living room was…. That just goes to show you that bigger isn’t better when it comes to christmas trees…. Another christmas I went with the same aunt and uncle to my uncle’s mom’s house… my aunt had told us of the horror stories of how this crazy old lady decorated. Well my mom wanted pictures of the tacky decorations… so the whole time that we were there my aunt and I…. mission impossible style, went through her house without her knowing and we took pictures of everything in every room. Looking back at the pictures… that was the tackiest house that I have ever seen in my life… without the tacky holiday decorations.

    email: maeyoxx@gmail.com

  • Reply Madison Owen December 13 2013 at 10:47 am

    I’m a firm believer in celebrating the true reason for the season. My parents raised me and my siblings to take turns reading the Christmas story every year. Now it’s become more than that. Since we are all old enough to understand why we celebrate Christmas in the first place, it’s become more valuable every year, and it’s a tradition that I love

    email:jss3shells@gmail.com

  • Reply Lindsey Burton-Harrison December 13 2013 at 12:16 pm

    Every year my friends hosts the most amazing Christmas party. 2 years ago I ended up talking to this really cool person for like 20 minutes. I slowly started to sober up and then realised I had been talking to myself haha! I tried to walk it off, I looked up into my reflection and noticed this hot guy had seen the whole thing, smirk on his, he walked over to me and said ‘Good convo then’ hahaha the horror, the shame haha I literally ran off……Ohhh the joys of Crimbo, to be fair I am looking forward to next weeks party I wonder which amazing person I will meet this time 😀 XOXO

    L.
    lburtonharrison@me.com

  • Reply courageous fingers December 13 2013 at 1:15 pm

    My favourite holiday memory happened back in December 2010. I arrived the village, Imo, with my family after our 8-hour long trip from Lagos. As usual, dad brings all the stuff down from the car for us to carry them into the house while mum unlocked the doors. While we were still trying to organize things (mum hadn’t unlocked the doors yet) a cousin of ours showed up to say hi. The greeting lasted a couple of minutes as both mum and dad were engaged in a conversation with him. In the end, he bade us goodbye and went his way while we resumed our unpacking. Mum proceeded to unlocked the doors as usual when she noticed that she wasn’t holding the key. She came back to inform us that she couldn’t find the key and inquire if any of us had seen it by any means. For the next one hour, all of us went crazy trying to trace/find the key. The funny part is where we found the key in the end, we found it in the keyhole of the door. It happened that mum had already put it in to unlock the door before our cousin came and she started looking for it first in her handbag without checking the door first. As for the rest of us, it’s funny how it didn’t cross our minds to check the door at first. Once we found the key, the whole family stood at the door laughing. we laughed so hard at each other, especially mum. It’s also my favourite holiday because starting the holiday with that funny incidence gave my family a good laughable memory for the entire period and each time we remembered it, we still laughed as hard- Chizitere Ojiaka (chizitereojiaka@yahoo.com)

  • Reply Mo Ray December 13 2013 at 4:08 pm

    Hiya Shirley! That necklace is soo pretty!

    My favourite family tradition was when me and majority of my extended family come out of the woodwork and make our merry way to my grandma’s house which is situated in a village in Nigeria. The heat + A LOT of good food + getting the chance to drink proper Fanta+ catching up with my family resulted in an extremely happy me every Christmas that was spent there 🙂

    Hope you are enjoying this festive season!

    Mo xx

    p.s Thanks for the giveaway and the chance to enter it :). My email is – withinmylocket@gmail.com

  • Reply Anopa H December 13 2013 at 4:53 pm

    Hi Shirley!

    Hope you are well, I’m good. My favorite Christmas tradition is something that I do by myself – wake up early Christmas morning to watch the sun rise and thank God for all the moments as beautiful as the sun rise that I can remember in the year. My email add is ropahove2@gmail.com

  • Reply AquariusDaisy December 13 2013 at 5:10 pm

    My favorite Holiday memory happened Christmas 2012. I was frantic looking for the perfect Christmas day outfit finally figured it out glitzy holiday sweater, pressed skater skirt swanky holiday studded tights & booties just to arrive at my Moms and everyone was all dressed in their Christmas Pajamas. Apparently I did not get the memo. It was such fun because I was so amped for everyone to be dressed up for the holidays & TECHNICALLY, they were.

  • Reply AquariusDaisy December 13 2013 at 5:14 pm

    My favorite Christmas memory was was from Christmas 2012 at my Moms. I was frantic putting together the best Christmas Day outfit, glitzy holiday sweater, posh skater skirt, studded tights and booties and a perfectly beat face and hair, Only to arrive at my Mother’s & everyone one was in their Christmas Eve Pajamas! It was so funny to me because normally everyone is all dressed up & festive. Technically they were. Luckily, I was able to change into some PJ’s as well.

    my email is AquariusDaisy@gmail.com

  • Reply Nkechi December 13 2013 at 5:16 pm

    One of my favourite holiday traditions as a child was sleeping downstairs with my brother and sisters so that early on Christmas morning we’d be able to open our presents.
    I say as a child, but I didn’t stop doing this until I was 16/17 lol. I know it doesn’t sound like much but to me it was really special. Hmm, maybe I’ll do it again this year… 😉

    Happy Holidays Shirley xo

    thesimplerview@gmail.com

  • Reply Becca December 13 2013 at 9:05 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition is just being with all of my family all day. There is nothing better than having everybody you love in the same room.

    rebecca.russum@hotmail.co.uk

    <3

  • Reply bUITI December 13 2013 at 9:58 pm

    Waooo! Just stumbled upon your blog and loving it already. Good work. My Favourite family tradition is holding and praying together with my family, immediately the clock hits 12midnight beautycindy2002@yahoo.com http://www.fashionitazbybuiti.blogspot.com

  • Reply loveoholic December 13 2013 at 10:41 pm

    Our holiday tradition is having Christmas dinner together. We alternate each year between my parents’ house in the country, and my aunt’s house in the city. It’s really great: everyone flies home (or tries to) for the holidays and we have a HUGE feast. We talk and drink and laugh way into the night, and it really feels like family. Everyone is very busy with work and school and their lives, but it’s really nice that we can still come together at this time of year and enjoy each others’ company like this.
    Email: danicethompson at gmail dot come

  • Reply loveoholic December 13 2013 at 10:42 pm

    Our holiday tradition is having Christmas dinner together. We alternate each year between my parents’ house in the country, and my aunt’s house in the city. It’s really great: everyone flies home (or tries to) for the holidays and we have a HUGE feast. We talk and drink and laugh way into the night, and it really feels like family. Everyone is very busy with work and school and their lives, but it’s really nice that we can still come together at this time of year and enjoy each others’ company like this.
    Email: danicethompson at gmail dot come

  • Reply Philomena N December 13 2013 at 10:44 pm

    Hahah, My favourite holiday moment was when I had told my sister that santa wasn’t real but she didnt believe me. Mum took us to get out photo done as usual and out of no where my sister pulls on the fake beard and learns the truth about santa.

  • Reply Vanessa December 13 2013 at 11:04 pm

    My parents are divorced so my siblings and I have two nights of Christmas Eve, the 24. Dec. is at my fathers (Danish) and 25. Dec. is at my mom’s (Phillippino). . When our butt is at the table and we are eating, talking about good times over the years or teasing each other about a habit we have or something… My mind is thinking of all the bad/sad stuff in that year weither is about friends, enemies, familiy, every day problems etc. and then i look around the table and i get this happy, satisfied, amazing, good crying feeling that FINALLY we are all together, nobody is bailing because it’s Christmas, and we are ONLY talking about the good stuff, good memories. KNOWING that EVERYONE is there! That’s why my favorite and funniest holiday memory i have is every year♥:)

    Xoxo
    Vanessa

    Mail:
    vanessadk94@gmail.com

  • Reply Vanessa December 13 2013 at 11:05 pm

    My parents are divorced so my siblings and I have two nights of Christmas Eve, the 24. Dec. is at my fathers (Danish) and 25. Dec. is at my mom’s (Phillippino). . When our butt is at the table and we are eating, talking about good times over the years or teasing each other about a habit we have or something… My mind is thinking of all the bad/sad stuff in that year weither is about friends, enemies, familiy, every day problems etc. and then i look around the table and i get this happy, satisfied, amazing, good crying feeling that FINALLY we are all together, nobody is bailing because it’s Christmas, and we are ONLY talking about the good stuff, good memories. KNOWING that EVERYONE is there! That’s why my favorite and funniest holiday memory i have is every year♥:)

    Xoxo
    Vanessa

    Mail:
    vanessadk94@gmail.com

  • Reply Megan Young December 13 2013 at 11:11 pm

    My fave christmas tradition is family gatherings! We don’t meet up much during the year so I love christmas to be the time where we all can catch up and have a laugh. We all get on so well and play the funniest games like pictionary! I’ve just come out of hospital for christmas, I have scoliosis 🙁 Without making this a sob story, arent wishbones for good luck? I could do with luck for my operation! I cant wait for christmas and I love your blog! Thank you for the giveaway.
    My email is: meganmaisies@hotmail.co.uk

  • Reply Justine H. December 14 2013 at 12:25 am

    Typically, every year my Dad gets a nice tree, and my mom decorates it really nice. However, my funniest holiday memory would have to be this one Christmas when we didn’t have our typical tree. I was in high school and I was moving into a new home. My family and I were still trying to get settled in, and of course we didn’t have a tree that year. So my Dad went out and got a small store bought tree that looked like it was suffering. When I tell you it was skinny, you could see right through the tree to the other side. My mother, who typically decorates it, could not believe my father would by a tree like that so she refused to decorate it. Long story short my dad decorated the tree, and we all had a good hearty laugh. The tree had no color coordination, and my dad basically through every ornament and accessories he could find on the tree. It was certainly a great Christmas, and memorable to say the least.

    Justine
    Email: hunter_justi92@yahoo.com

  • Reply Mikayla Jenkins December 14 2013 at 1:12 am

    My favorite holiday tradition is making hot chocolate and sugar cookies, both from scratch, with my son.

    Mikjenkins8@gmail.com

  • Reply Sharonda December 14 2013 at 4:12 am

    My favorite holiday tradition would have to be making dinner with the women in my family. Being around my family brings great joy to my heart! Plus, the food is delish! =)

    My email is mills.sharonda@gmail.com

  • Reply FlamBush City with Buffy and Nona December 14 2013 at 4:24 am

    My christmas tradition began when we spent our first Christmas in Paris, having moved from Nigeria. I was 12 years old then. We spent the morning opening presents, the afternoon every one cooking and in the evening drinking champagne. My Mother would give us flutes of champagne drinks (few times). We would be running around, ( a bit tipsy i guess) but It was loud and fun and bright, and full of laughter. it was so french at first, but it stayed with us as we grew older. Drinking champagne into boxing day.

  • Reply FlamBush City with Buffy and Nona December 14 2013 at 4:24 am

    My christmas tradition began when we spent our first Christmas in Paris, having moved from Nigeria. I was 12 years old then. We spent the morning opening presents, the afternoon every one cooking and in the evening drinking champagne. My Mother would give us flutes of champagne drinks (few times). We would be running around, ( a bit tipsy i guess) but It was loud and fun and bright, and full of laughter. it was so french at first, but it stayed with us as we grew older. Drinking champagne into boxing day.

  • Reply Hannah Burnett December 14 2013 at 7:34 am

    I always go to the church service with my family, then we drive around and look at christmas lights, we get Chineese food, and when we get home we all open one present and we read the same story before bed.
    hannahmarie@panthers.greenville.edu

  • Reply Darlene Dugyawi December 14 2013 at 10:05 am

    My favorite holiday tradition is when my family comes together at my aunt’s house on Christmas eve and we do a countdown to Christmas morning. I have a huge family, but not everyone lives in the city we grew up. So everyone makes an exception during Christmas to come back home. When it is 1 minute to midnight we all gather around the living room by the tree and by the time everyone gets there, we have 10 seconds to count down. Once midnight strikes we all tell each other Merry Christmas and give hugs and kisses to each other. Happy Holidays Shirley!!! Sending love from San Francisco! <3

    My email is DarDugyawi@yahoo.com

  • Reply Ai Li December 14 2013 at 11:16 am

    My favourite holiday memory was my first ever christmas away from my family. I was living in China, and me and the other foreigners I met decided to make the day as homely as possible. We all cooked a dish and ate at one of my friend’s apartments. What made it special was that it was a traditional/non traditional celebration. We had secret santa and a christmas tree(traditional), but were eating Peking duck (non traditional). It was one of the happiest days of my life, and was a nice substitute for home 🙂

  • Reply Ai Li December 14 2013 at 11:21 am

    My favourite holiday memory was my first ever christmas away from my family. I was living in China, and me and the other foreigners I met decided to make the day as homely as possible. We all cooked a dish and ate at one of my friend’s apartments. What made it special was that it was a traditional/non traditional celebration. We had secret santa and a christmas tree(traditional), but were eating Peking duck (non traditional). It was one of the happiest days of my life, and was a nice substitute for home 🙂 (Reposted this as I forgot to put my email address at the end of the original post: ai.li207331@gmail.com)

  • Reply Samantha Reece December 14 2013 at 12:28 pm

    Hi Shirley, our Christmas tradition is to buy new pjs for us and our two children, on Christmas day we have a pj day and play with all the new toys xxxx

  • Reply Samantha Reece December 14 2013 at 12:29 pm

    Hi Shirley, our Christmas tradition is to buy new pjs for us and our two children, on Christmas day we have a pj day and play with all the new toys xxxx

  • Reply Martha December 14 2013 at 12:57 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition is going to my grandma’s and spend the Christmas Eve drinking champagne and eating candies. Love it! 🙂

  • Reply Savannah December 14 2013 at 2:01 pm

    My favorite holiday memory is when my grandparents came fromm 8 states away and knocked on our door and surprised all of us because only my mom and dad knew that they were coming. It was a great Christmas. This necklace is gorgeous!

    Savannah.Perry.95@gmail.com

    xxx

    http://www.glamorousgirl2014.blogspot.com

  • Reply Joana Neves December 14 2013 at 2:39 pm

    My favourite thing about Xmas is time I spend with my family, sharing and rebembering stories of ours.
    joana.am.neves@gmail.com

  • Reply LowLow December 14 2013 at 6:44 pm

    Back In MY day, we didn’t have elf on a shelf. It was Santa, or…mommy?.

    When we were little, we were always suspicious about this St. Nick character, but mom made sure to keep it under wrap. My mom is the worst at hiding things and soon her behavior was less and less discrete –she became messy.

    I remember one year in particular, my mom would do some of the silliest things: taking us to the store when she needed to do xmas shopping, telling us “you better not go in the toy aisle,” putting huge comforters in the cart to conceal things and making us head back to the car before check out. We also weren’t all in our sisters room or in my mom’s room the night before Christmas. All really sketchy.

    Usually, “Santa” would place typed tags on our presents, but this year mom (errr, Santa) didn’t have the time. When it came time to open presents, we all recognized the tag writing: my sister’s. As we began to question her, my mom interjected and said my sister was one of Santa’s elves. “How? When did she have time?” None of these questions could be answered. My sister finally admitted, “Let’s cut the crap, Santa isn’t real.” Thanks Nikki

    Our suspicions were confirmed and from then on, we our mission was to figure out what presents we got(it worked really well until I shouted out the name of the barbie doll I got without unwrapping the entire thing first, crap).

    Belinda
    curlcode@gmail.com

  • Reply rachelizabeth December 14 2013 at 7:25 pm

    Falling asleep in front of the fire with the family watching home alone. chilli_guitar@hotmail.co.uk,
    merry christmas!x

  • Reply Helena December 14 2013 at 9:15 pm

    My funniest holiday memory is when i was in primary school and my teachers gave us little poems to memorize and recite in front of our families. Unfortunately i hadn’t a great memory…so i began to improvise and say improbable things, and eventually my parents rewarded me because they were proud that I had memorized a poem long and difficult 🙂
    Email: elenaernano39@yahoo.it

  • Reply Eboni Morgan December 14 2013 at 10:49 pm

    I remember being about 8 years old and during the Christmas holiday. My mom finally let me drink from a glass AND sit in our “restricted, carpeted room”- a room for only grown ups during dinner time. I was so happy! While sitting in the room, I spilled some eggnog on the carpet- she doesn’t know to this day, but all the kids knew! It was super hard for everyone to keep it a secret, but somehow we managed! I still giggle every time I think about it!

  • Reply Sandra December 14 2013 at 11:41 pm

    Ahhh, this necklace is so me! It’s gorgeous! My favourite Christmas tradition is staying in my PJs until very late and just relax and watch Christmas movies. 🙂

  • Reply Mynijah Sturdivant December 15 2013 at 1:50 am

    My favorite holiday tradition is eating with my family in my Granmommy’s house. It always warms my heart.
    Mynijahdarling@gmail.com

  • Reply Mynijah Sturdivant December 15 2013 at 1:51 am

    My favorite holiday tradition is eating with my family in my Granmommy’s house. It always warms my heart.
    Mynijahdarling@gmail.com

  • Reply Shelley December 15 2013 at 3:58 am

    Thanks for the giveaway! One of my favorite holiday traditions has always been decorating the Christmas tree with my family.

    seashell210 at gmail dot com

  • Reply Jazmine-Janine Dykes December 15 2013 at 4:23 am

    One year a family friend surprised my brother and I by dressing up as Santa Claus and bringing us presents 🙂

    jjldykes@gmail.com

  • Reply Jazmine-Janine Dykes December 15 2013 at 4:24 am

    One year a family friend came to my house dressed as Santa Claus with a sack of presents for my brother and I 🙂

  • Reply Janessa Smith December 15 2013 at 4:36 am

    When I was a child, my father was always overseas (he was in the Navy) during Christmas. On Christmas Eve my brother, sister, and I would each open one gift and our unopened cards. My father always sent a huge box with a card that stood 3 feet tall. That was definitely my fondest memory, getting those giant cards.

  • Reply AnneKaye December 15 2013 at 5:30 am

    so i decided to travel home(nigeria) from Germany for the holidays and since christmas is my favourite time of the year, my mom decided to make it special for me. She told me before i came that she was going to buy a new christmas tree since the old one was already looking raggedy. Well, i came home to the same christmas tree whose stand was broken and my mom painted a small bucket green and poured sand inside as support. The tree fell as we were having dinner

  • Reply AnneKaye December 15 2013 at 5:40 am

    so i decided to travel home(nigeria) from Germany for christmas to see my mom.Since christmas is my favourite time of the year, my mom decided to make it special for me. She brought out all the decorations and she said she was going to buy a new christmas tree(the old one is probably older than i am).Well, i came home to that same christams tree whose stand was broken.My mom decided it was a good idea to paint a small bucket green and she poured sand in for support. It later fell on her head

  • Reply Eric Risner December 15 2013 at 7:48 am

    I like that we all get together as a family!

  • Reply Ronishea Richardson December 15 2013 at 7:51 am

    One year we went to visit my grandparents for Christmas and we were having our Christmas dinner I tried to fix my drink but someone must have shaken it up or dropped it because next thing I knew I was have a coke shower and me not thinking I just kept turning my head from side to side to keep it from getting on my face my grandad had to take the soda and close it lol I felt like an idiot.Droppy2188@AOL.com…. By the way I really enjoy your YouTube video’s and blogs you were actually the first beauty guru I ever watched and even now I still don’t watch many different people on YouTube I think I can watch your vids all day and not get annoyed or bored I think it may be because of your accent

  • Reply Doris December 15 2013 at 7:51 am

    Growing up in Africa, I remember the holidays as being so festive with that sense of togetherness. The neighbors would exchange meals they would cook that day! And there is music everywhere in the streets!

    adorislinda@gmail.com
    Doris

  • Reply Mariam December 15 2013 at 7:53 am

    We were not too big on celebrating the holidays with my parents, but we were always looking forward to the new year together!

    Mariam

    epouseetmerebenie@gmail.com

  • Reply A. December 15 2013 at 3:36 pm

    Growing up, Christmas was not very traditional for my sister and I. My father was very abusive, physically and emotionally. On Christmas day, my mother made sure we were out of the house just to preserve Christmas with happiness and love. She took us to get a delicious cup of hot chocolate with all of the trimmings and took us to see a movie in theaters. My sister and I still carry on that tradition. My mother became ill when my sister and I were in our early teens but we made sure to keep those memories alive. I’m away at uni and it’s exam time but yesterday I messaged my sister saying ” what movie are we seeing this Christmas?!”. It truly is the little things in life that make it worth the while 🙂

  • Reply Lex December 15 2013 at 4:33 pm

    My favorite holiday memory is the year my mom asked me to teach her to salsa dance at our Christmas eve party and we both slipped on turkey grease and ended up on the floor! Thank you! alexa.nicole.nippa@gmail.com

  • Reply Lex December 15 2013 at 4:34 pm

    My favorite holiday memory is the year my mom asked me to teach her to salsa dance at our Christmas eve party and we both slipped on turkey grease and ended up on the floor! Thank you! alexa.nicole.nippa@gmail.com

  • Reply Aud88 December 15 2013 at 10:00 pm

    My funniest holiday memory happened in 2004, whilst my siblings n I were teens. We went from a trip to Victoria falls straight to the cattle-post(in Botswana) for Christmas (which is literally horror for most teens here :p) and my brother and sister felt them folks ruined xmas hahaha teenagers :p
    See life at the cattle-post is quite basic, you cook everything by the fire in the blazing heat, but I loved it as we got to serve the herdsman’s family for once 🙂
    And it was overall a great day as I also learnt how to ride a horse 🙂

    Audrey O.

    botswanalamb@yahoo.com

  • Reply nubiannapps December 15 2013 at 11:34 pm

    My funniest christmas memory is when I was a little girl (maybe 9 or 10), I asked my dad for a 3LW CD for Christmas. On Christmas day, I remember blasting the CD on the radio in the house and my dad walking around singing along with the songs. I just thought it was so funny to see him enjoying my music 🙂

    terraniciah@gmail.com

  • Reply Miquella December 16 2013 at 12:50 am

    Every year my family buys new pajamas, wears them on Christmas eve and opens one gift before we go to bed. 🙂

    wannalala@comcast.net

  • Reply Miquella December 16 2013 at 12:51 am

    Every year my family buys new pajamas for Christmas. We’ll wear them on Christmas eve and open a gift before going to bed. It hasn’t changed at all. 🙂

    wannalala@comcast.net

  • Reply KunnyLove December 16 2013 at 1:24 am

    my favorite holiday memories are from when my mama (grandmother) was alive. EVERY YEAR we would ALL get together at her house and have christmas dinner, all of us around one table. it is there where we would have our loudest laughs, fullest stomachs, and happiest moments. she would singlehandedly cook everything including a turkey and a ham. i remember her house being so warm and comforting. she is undoubtedly my favorite holiday memory.

    ropauline.doe@gmail.com

  • Reply Jennifer Volcy December 16 2013 at 2:05 am

    Our Christmas traditions include Secret Santa for all the adults and purchasing gifts for all the children .. we also allow them to open one gift christmas eve and the rest Christmas morning.

    my email address is jennvolcy_@hotmail.com

    http://www.futurelawyergirl.com

  • Reply Jhan December 16 2013 at 3:59 am

    My fave holiday tradition growing up was being able to spend Thanksgiving and/or Christmas with one of my best friends every year. As a kid and teen, that is major.

  • Reply Allenbyba Teneilabe December 16 2013 at 9:03 am

    my favorite holiday tradition has to be setting up the christmas decorations and getting the place all spruced up for the big day! i love it! i especially love it cause it brings me and my family members closer just by doing that one simple chore. Christmas morning is another special tradition we adhere to…im usually the one making cookies and hot chocolate…i feel like a kid every Christmas and its just the best feeling ever! btw i love the simplicity of your blog,there is no pretense or extra diva-ness(if dats a word) lol! and i look forward to more of your posts my email is mclizzie2003@yahoo.com

  • Reply ash December 16 2013 at 9:24 am

    being of indian heritage, the funniest holiday memory for me was the fact that I was so mad at my friends for not showing up, when what actually went down was my friends actually attended our party but i was too busy helping my mom out in the kitchen to even notice them!! Keep in mind we indian throw huge parties and at this time the headcount was at 500 people and everything was home cooked!! 🙂

    ashvinid@yahoo.com

  • Reply OE77 December 16 2013 at 10:45 am

    Favourite holiday tradition was my dad dressing up as santa claus every year. We loved it! and we never caught on that it was him, miss those days

    osehietomi@yahoo.com

  • Reply OE77 December 16 2013 at 10:45 am

    Favourite holiday tradition was my dad dressing up as santa claus every year. We loved it! and we never caught on that it was him, miss those days

    osehietomi@yahoo.com

  • Reply juana Browne December 16 2013 at 11:38 pm

    One of my favorite Christmas tradition and memories was decorating the tree with my dad. Once we were done I would stand back and watch him plug it in, and all the lights would come to life. I would then lay under the tree and look up into the lights and daydream till I fell asleep. My dad would then carry me to bed. Sometimes I would pretend to be asleep, just to be carried and feel protected and loved by my dad. I love d those special times with my dad 🙂

    My email: juanalopez98@yahoo.com

  • Reply bubblybubbles December 17 2013 at 1:18 am

    My favorite holiday tradition is spending time with my family on Christmas Eve just the four of us! We have loads of food and open some presents (shhh don’t tell anyone hah) Im thankful for all they do for me and my brother and especially adopting us 14 years ago! I LOVE THEM! Christmas time is really special! Its a time to be great-ful  thank for this giveaway nadia-ox@hotmail.co.uk

  • Reply Daisy Lilley December 17 2013 at 1:55 am

    My favourite memory from a holiday would definitely have to be the day my family were travelling home on the Eurostar from a week in Paris. I was about 14 and I really needed the loo. I absolutely HATE going to the loo on a train as I’m paranoid that with these new electronic doors with the light up lock buttons won’t work and the door will open mid-pee. So with trying to avoid this whole scenario, I was becoming more and more desperate for the loo, and I eventually gave in, but forced Dad to come with me as a door guard. But with all this panic, when I actually got into the Loo, I completely forgot press the darn lock button! And as you can probably guess.. Dad lent on the ‘open’ button, my bare bum was exposed to the whole train! Nightmare!!! 5 Years on and I avoid trains full stop!

  • Reply Hanna T December 17 2013 at 7:56 am

    Hmm.. until recently I thought it was normal to defrost the turkey in the swimming pool, which is what my grandma did.

  • Reply Oyinlola December 17 2013 at 11:48 am

    I can’t say we had Christmas traditions in my family but I used to love the 3 new sets of clothes – 1 for boxing day, 1 for christmas and the last for new year’s day.

    Because we usually kill live chicken during the holiday, I always preferred eating the head part – weird uh?

    Email is: lola_olojede@yahoo.com

  • Reply Oyinlola December 17 2013 at 11:49 am

    I can’t say we had Christmas traditions in my family but I used to love the 3 new sets of clothes – 1 for boxing day, 1 for christmas and the last for new year’s day.

    Because we usually kill live chicken during the holiday, I always preferred eating the head part – weird uh?

    Email is: lola_olojede@yahoo.com

  • Reply Oyinlola December 17 2013 at 11:50 am

    I can’t say we had Christmas traditions in my family but I used to love the 3 new sets of clothes – 1 for boxing day, 1 for christmas and the last for new year’s day.

    Because we usually kill live chicken during the holiday, I always preferred eating the head part – weird uh?

    Email is: lola_olojede@yahoo.com

  • Reply Oyinlola December 17 2013 at 11:52 am

    I can’t say we had Christmas traditions in my family but I used to love the 3 new sets of clothes – 1 for boxing day, 1 for christmas and the last for new year’s day.

    Because we usually kill live chicken during the holiday, I always preferred eating the head part – weird uh?

    Email is: lola_olojede@yahoo.com

  • Reply Ayeesha Abiola December 17 2013 at 3:05 pm

    Hey Shirley!
    One of your biggest fans here!
    One of my families traditions at Christmas is “The chicken competition” !! Me and my two brothers season chicken wings in different ways (of our choice) and the best wings win! (Judged by our parents) Last year I won , by making my coca-cola wings!! They were lush!!

    PS. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!

    oxoxo.

  • Reply Veselina December 17 2013 at 5:51 pm

    Hi,Shirley,and thank you for the chance for winning this wonderful necklace 🙂
    My funniest holiday memory is my father,dressing like Santa and thinking,that I can`t recognise him…I still remember his face and still laught of it a lot 🙂
    ditetu_f@abv.bg

    http://www.mykaleidoscopeeyes.blogspot.com

  • Reply Krystal Bowen December 17 2013 at 7:04 pm

    My favorite christmas tradition is when we all come back from school and one night we go throughout the neighborhood and look at all the decorated houses and laugh and tell stories…..
    krystal.v.bowen@gmail.com

  • Reply Rachel December 17 2013 at 8:38 pm

    This is quite weird, but my family and I go to Pizza Hut for dinner every single Christmas Eve, and have done for as long as I can remember. My youngest sibling is 15, so I’m not so sure why we still do this.. but I love it! xx

    @rachelkellis

  • Reply Soraya December 17 2013 at 9:17 pm

    My favourite holiday tradition would have to be an huge dinner on christmas with all my siblings and my mom. I come from quite a large family (5kids) and my siblings are much older than me and don’t live at my mom anymore.For me this is a way to spend time with everyone in one room. On the second day of Christmas we always go to see a movie, but this year we’re breaking that one a little by having a christmas brunch at a Thai restaurant. :)I also believe that Christmas can be celebrated with al your loved ones,including friends. I hope you have lovely holidays Shirley! xx

  • Reply W Morgan December 17 2013 at 11:10 pm

    Unfortunately, I’m living out of state so my family isn’t near to create the most amazing holiday traditions or funniest memories. So, I guess I could post about a tradition I would like to do with my future family … 🙂 I would like to do things like christmas tree picking or putting up lights and making a signature holiday dessert for visitors to enjoy while I host at my home and dressing up the family dog in cute hats and coats. Hope that counts!

    Enjoy your holiday and beautiful necklace!

    WYV – wyvmorgan@gmail.com

  • Reply ...Ela! December 18 2013 at 12:48 am

    My favourite holiday tradition is going to church with my entire family on Christmas Eve. When we get home from Church, we pop some champagne and then eat a feast and dance! We usually all fall asleep around 4 am, go to bed, wake up and eat another feast 🙂
    Maryse08@hotmail.com

  • Reply ...Ela! December 18 2013 at 12:51 am

    My favourite Holiday tradition is going to church with my family on Christmas Eve. After church we get around midnight, pop some champagne and eat a feast and dance until about 4 am. When we wake around 10-11 am, we usually continue with the festivities 🙂
    Maryse
    email:maryse08@hotmail.com

  • Reply doree December 18 2013 at 2:52 am

    My absolute fav tradition is waffles in pjs, a warm house, and skyping with the in laws in the caribbean

  • Reply Stacey Ef December 18 2013 at 3:00 am

    My holiday tradition is my mom always cooking lots of Nigerian food! like she throws it down on christmas! Haha!

    staceyiyahen@yahoo.ca

  • Reply T.T. December 18 2013 at 4:17 am

    Hi Ms. Shirley B. Eniang! Saw you on youtube and decided to drop by your blog. My favorite Christmas tradition was when my family went to church on Christmas Eve. We would exchange presents with the other members. I remember praying for a Barbie doll (the stores were all sold out!). When I got to church, my friend got a Barbie for her gift and she freely gave it to me! That was a blessing.

  • Reply ekhloe December 18 2013 at 4:20 am

    My favourite holiday tradition is going to Christmas mass and right after service rushing home with my family to open presents and stuff our faces with chocolates and other sweets! ekhloe28@yahoo.ca Thank you for the giveaway love 🙂

  • Reply T.T. December 18 2013 at 4:28 am

    forgot to leave email ^^;
    ladysade45[at]yahoo[dot]com

  • Reply Monique Chase December 18 2013 at 8:17 am

    My funniest holiday memory is when I was 5 or 6 years old and me and my older sis went to check our stockings on Christmas morn. I wasn’t the brightest child – my stocking had a $5 dollar bill, and my sister’s stocking had five one dollar bills. I cried my eyes out because in my mind, my sister had gotten more money. LOL. My dad spent that morning trying to explain to me that I had received the same amount as my sis…and then quickly gave up and handed me the five one dollar bills. Yea…my fam still holds that one over me, LOL. Anyway, love your blog, Shirley! xoxo chasemoe@gmail.com

  • Reply LadyJackson December 18 2013 at 7:02 pm

    Hi Shirley
    My favourite holiday tradition would be on christmas eve we start cooking then all the kids bring their covers and pillows down to the living room and we have a huge slumber party and stay up all night watching christmas movies and eating chocolates and treats whilst the smell of turkey and chicken ect fills the house. so festive and cosy. x

    my email address is sarahobiaysh@aol.com.

    Ayesha
    xo

  • Reply Evelina Rodrigues December 18 2013 at 7:21 pm

    My family and I have the tradition of opening the Christmas presents on at midnight (25th) before going to bed.

  • Reply Ria December 18 2013 at 7:23 pm

    This is so pretty!

  • Reply Miss Flaky December 18 2013 at 7:53 pm

    I remember when I was much younger, on Christmas mornings, My Mum would cook some rice and make me go give our neighbors and in return,they would give me some money.There was this particular year, I took the bowl of rice to a neighbor and he collected it and told me ”say thank you to your mum”, and he went in. I remember standing for some time outside waiting for him to come out with money but he never did. I remember and laugh about it every Christmas period. The whole experience taught me about giving not only on Christmas but all year round.My mum was the kindest woman ever.

    My email address is lovethshaddy@gmail.com

  • Reply LadyJackson December 18 2013 at 7:53 pm

    Seasons Greetings Shirley

    My favourite holiday tradition is on Christmas Eve me and mum would start cooking all the meats we seasoned the day before, chicken,turkey,lamb, beef and ham (yes we like selection so we cook it all lol) all the kids bring down their blankets and pillows and lay them by the fire place and around the xmas tree and we have a festive slumber party in the living room, we stay up all night watching Christmas movies and eating chocolates and treats as the much anticipated smell of Christmas dinner wafts through the house its so cozy and festive.

    Whats your favourite tradition or holiday anecdote?

    my email address is sarahobiaysh@aol.com

    Ayesha
    xo

  • Reply Abigail B December 18 2013 at 9:41 pm

    Favourite holiday tradition is relaxing at home, enjoying all of the amazing christmas food lying around at home and watching festive films like Elf and Home Alone!

    abigailalicia@hotmail.co.uk

  • Reply ShannonLarissa December 26 2013 at 5:45 pm

    Congratulations to the winner

  • Reply Laura December 31 2013 at 1:28 am

    That is such a cute necklace! I have been loving small necklaces! I just think they look so nice, simple and cute.

    Laura DemandBeauty xo

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