Happy Holiday's Random Giveaway #1 - Holiday Traditions

Yippee! The first giveaway is ready to go, and I hope you're ready to participate in some of the fun. If you didn't get a chance to read the rules quite yet, please do go here and check them out before posting your response. If you're ready to proceed, please keep reading.

Growing up, I was a ridiculously enthusiastic lover of animals (some things don't change). My love of animals was so great that I often came home with stray cats, frogs I'd found nearby that I thought needed shelter, wounded birds, and so on. It became a bit much, I think, for my parents but they tolerated my need to "protect" the animals from harm. I'm certain it was a little frustrating because some of the animals ended up being pets of neighbors.

Although I don't go to quite the extremes I did as a child, I still find it difficult not to help animals that are lost, injured or homeless. This time of year particularly, I am always grateful for the fur-family and all of the joy they bring into our lives. We have a small shoot each year with the pups just before the holiday season begins and we send the photos out to friends and family.

A small selection of family photos from the holiday season through the years.

At first, the holiday tradition started as a means to give to our local animal shelter, but it's become a fun (and sometimes challenging because the four-legged kids don't always cooperate) way to have a timeline of sorts of the entire family. We enjoy some of the photos more than others, but it's fun to see the changes through the years.

For this particular giveaway, I am wondering what one of your favorite holiday traditions is to do or participate in this time of year? Is there that one thing you look forward to doing each year, or maybe it's the one thing you dread, but still end up appreciating in retrospect?

Bonus Entry: 
A few years ago, Sam and I rode our bikes to the grocery store to pick up a couple of items and came across a wounded animal. If you can tell me the type of animal Sam and I rescued that day in your response, you'll get an extra entry into this giveaway. If you know what I named the animal, you'll receive two extra entries.

The gift for this giveaway will be Caz Nicklin's The Girls' Bicycle Handbook in paperback form.

Men, please don't feel you need to shy away from entering this giveaway. I'm sure there are plenty of females in your lives who would appreciate this book, or perhaps you know someone who is teetering on the edge of giving in to riding a bike? Maybe you yourself would like to give this book the once over? This book is full of bright photos and pulls together a reasonable list of how to's for anyone looking for information or who may be a bit shy asking for help.

All entries for this giveaway must be time/date marked no later than Wednesday, December 3, 2014 at 1:00pm MST. Your reply will serve as the date/time stamp, so please check to make sure your response goes through (There have been some issues with Blogger sending comments into a black hole, never to be seen again). I highly recommend copying your response before clicking the reply button. If you don't see that your "comment will be visible after approval," then it probably didn't go through. I'd prefer to delete duplicates than have someone miss out, so please don't be afraid to send something twice if you're unsure. I will do my best to be quick with approving comments/replies to help facilitate the process as best I can.

The winner will be announced no later than Thursday, December 4, 2014, so check back here to see if you're the winner.

I look forward to reading about your favorite holiday traditions!