As I mentioned before, I am one of the 50 blogs participating in the amazing HP Magic Giveaway. In case you forgot, you can win $6000.00 worth of HP & Microsoft gear. I’m serious. See it?
(More on the specs here.)
And I know I’ve taunted you with dates. And made you guess. And wonder. And wait. But I’ve been nice and continued to link to live giveaways. But guess what? It’s our turn! That’s right! Stop, Drop & Blog is now LIVE with our HP Magic Giveaway! Sound the alarm! Roll out the hose! It’s a four alarm giveaway, folks!
First and foremost, I need to tell you this: while our giveaway is based on a random chance, I want you guys to understand the reason our site decided to participate in such an amazing giveaway. I’ve been blogging all this week about the reasons we are so grateful this holiday season. I will continue to do so throughout the rest of this week. FireDad and I have recognized how truly blessed we have been in the past few years. We have two healthy, happy children. We have a house. We are having a Christmas of our own. We are in love with one another and with our family. We are so blessed. And as such, we want to share that feeling with your family. But we don’t want that feeling to stop there.
We know that we wouldn’t be as blessed as we are if people wouldn’t have taken time to share things with us along the way. The table my parents gave to us when we got our first apartment. The meals the ladies of the church brought to us after LittleBrother was born and I didn’t have enough time to shower let alone cook a healthy meal. The leads for freelancing jobs that others have shared with me because they felt that I would be best suited. The friendship others have extended to us over the years. Without those little bits of sharing, we wouldn’t quite be the family that we are today. And that’s why we believe so intently in the true meaning behind this contest: sharing the magic. While we can’t demand that our winner share the package with anyone, we’d really like to promote that idea. I won’t tell you who and how to share but I will delete all entries that say, “Gimme gimme.” I reserve the right to do so!
All that said: I’ll need you to visit the whole list of rules for the giveaway, of course, but here’s the rundown on how to enter!
1. Leave a comment on this post explaining what winning this package would mean to you and your family in these tough economic times and how your sharing of this package would contribute to the true meaning of the season. This counts as one entry. You may only leave one entry in this fashion. IP addresses are recorded. Obvious spoof IPs will be disqualified.
2. Tweet this contest with this tinyurl ( http://tinyurl.com/sdbgiveaway1 ) and the hashtag #SDBGiveaway. You may tweet up to twice per day. Come back to this post and paste the URL of each individual tweet you post. (I will check every single one at the end of the contest so do not delete.) Each tweet, up to two per day, will count as one entry. (How to get the URL of each individual tweet? Click on the “time” that your tweet was entered. It follows your actual tweet. “3 minutes ago” is an example.) And, not necessary, but feel free to add me on twitter. I’m FireMom!
3. Digg, Stumble or otherwise promote this contest via some form of social media (other than the twitter entry above). Come back to this post and paste the URL of each individual promotion along with your username in case things get confusing. Each promotion will count as one entry. One promotion per social media site.
4. Blog about this contest on your public blog telling your readers a longer version of the comment you left in entry option #1. Meaning: Blog about what this contest means to you and your family this year and how sharing it would impact friends and family. Include a link back to this post. Please come back this post to post the link to your permalinked post just in case my blog doesn’t pick up your track back. You are allowed to do this once and it will count as one entry.
All entries will be entered into a Google Documents spreadsheet. Your name, email, method of entry, date, time and IP address will be recorded. Upon close of the giveaway, I will double check the list for any blatant errors. I will then pick a winner via random.org. Winner will first be contacted via email on the evening of December 16, 2008. Winner has 12 hours to contact me by email reply before the giveaway moves on to the next random winner. Winner will need to provide me with full name, shipping address and telephone number but can choose whatever name they wish to use for announcement on the blog. No personal information will be shared with my readers. I will announce the confirmed winner (hopefully!) by noon here on Stop, Drop & Blog. Winner will be provided with a form for tax purposes so that HP may reimburse you via check for the taxes on this $6000.00 prize package.
Now that we’ve got the entry methods out of the way, I must insist you read the Official Rules of our giveaway. Your participation in any one of those entry methods is an acceptance of the Official Rules. And, let me tell you, #5 is quite possibly the biggest rule.
I am looking forward to meeting some new readers, reading your tweets and blogs and otherwise helping you get in the spirit of giving this holiday season. I encourage you to keep reading this week as I continue to blog about the reasons we are so very grateful this holiday season. In fact, I encourage you to swear of whining for a week and blog about the positives in your life, too! It’s quite refreshing!
Ready? Set! WIN!
ETA: Contest is closed as of 6pm on December 16, 2008. Winner will be announced on the blog tomorrow! Thanks for all of the entries, stories and awesomeness that you have shared with me during this amazing opportunity.
1,276 Responses to “Stop, Drop & Spread That Holiday Magic”
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Winning this prize would mean so much. Not only to me but also to my family because I am granting this prize to my brother and his new family. There is nothing more precious & more fulfilling than seeing a loved one fill-up with joy even in the hardest point of their lives. My brother & his family is just starting their life as a family and with their first baby coming soon they need all the support and love from us. I hope we can share with them our support, love and the touch of Magic in this coming holiday season.
http://twitter.com/jeys0n/status/1051030715
http://twitter.com/jeys0n/status/1051050513
http://jeys0n.blogspot.com/2008/12/hp-magic-giveaway.html
Good luck to everyone!
facebook note
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/note.php?note_id=43898872340&id=751455379&index=0
[...] head on over to http://stopdropandblog.com/2008/12/11/stop-drop-spread-that-holiday-magic for a chance to win $6000 of HP Magic Giveaway [...]
personal blog entry
http://peterifranco.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/hp-magic-giveaway/
@Peter Franco: my username is peterifranco
Hi, i want to give this contest so i can update my PC and use the touchsmart as a multimedia center for my home. Here on argentina its very expensive plus the jobs pays only 500 USD on average so, you can see that buying a brand pc its really imposible….
I would like to give my sister one of the notebooks (she really can’t afford to buy one) and the other to my dad. The hp mini is for my wife, so she can use it to teach at the university.
What a great contest, HP is being very generous, and Mrs. FireMom, you’re doing a great job promoting the true reason for the season.
The mini laptop would go to my uncle. He owns a business that up until this week employed me and some close friends – oftentimes “rescuing” us from less than ideal positions. Unfortunately the money has run out and he’s on his own again. He travels 5 days a week, and the ancient large laptop he has for himself only adds to the burden I know he’s carrying around having to lay off employees at Christmas.
My mom will be getting the HDX 18. She never gets anything “new” – always hand-me-downs from her kids or my dad. Her current laptop is painfully slow (it pained me this weekend to use it for 10 minutes) so she deserves this (and so much more) after successfully raising three children.
My wife gets the wireless printer. She always has to ask me to transfer/print photos of Avery since our own old all-in-one is hard wired to my computer.
Avery gets Kung-Fu panda!! (in a few years, that is).
Sorry, but I’m keeping the touchscreen. Too cool!
Here are:
My first Twitter tweet on this: http://twitter.com/alee67/status/1051075774
A Facebook shared link: http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?id=704917809
A link on Friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/alee67
A bookmark on del.icio.us: http://delicious.com/andrew_lee
My blog entry: http://alee67.livejournal.com/1920.html
Linked on del.icio.us …
http://delicious.com/merklitl
Facebook’d!
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=549087758&ref=profile
Todays tweets
http://twitter.com/jewo/status/1051165365
http://twitter.com/jewo/status/1051177469
This is a great contest. I don’t think it would be a major improvement to my life, but it would to other members of my family.
I would give the printer and mini to my wife. She works for an arts organization and takes home lots of work, and travels to lots of meetings. These two items would be a great asset for her.
My sister is limited in her mobility and does crafts work from home. Her laptop just went belly up, so I would let her pick which of the two laptops she would like as a replacement.
I would give the touchsmart to my parents. They have never used a computer before, and this looks to be a great first PC for them. We live 350 miles apart, and it would be great to have video chats with them.
I would keep which ever laptop is left as a replacement for my 4 year old thinkpad.
OK, wow, I cannot believe there is so an amazing give away. In order to enter I have to explain why I should win. For me it is fairly easy. My husband and I separated about 2 months ago. We have 3 children (7,6,2) so you can imagine the complexity. Being so unbelievably blessed by many things included the book-LOVE DARE, we have found a love like never before. This particular package would truly be amazing in helping us to begin our “new” life together. Since he quit working 2 yrs ago to go into the music ministry things have been, well, extremely difficult down to having $91/mth to feed a family of 5. Anywho, this would be a tremendous blessing to us and just the opportunity to enter is phenomenal. Thank you so much.
I would like to keep the HDX 18 for myself and I’m going to share the rest with some of my friends. One of my friends is in a need of a laptop for his study and job, so one of the laptops would go to him (he want a 17″ laptop so probably I have to let HDX 18 to go to him). I’m not going to keep the touchsmart PC since it’s very big and heavy (I’m still renting so keeping big stuff is not a really good idea).
Honestly I don’t know what to give to my family. I live just with my sister here. My parent is back in my home country. Also they don’t really need any of these so I think it is better to share these to those who need them. Don’t worry I’m going to give my family something else.
http://twitter.com/ariflukito/status/1051191240
First, I adore the way you’ve structured the contest. It truly is in line with your heart and family values.
Second, I thought about how the items would need to be distributed and it’s simple: to others! My younger sister is without a computer during her final semester of college. She’s been trying to scrape up the money for yet another fix, but it’s just not going well. My husband has been doing his home office work sitting in a beach chair whilst pounding away on a 15 year old computer so that I can have the “nice” one for my school work. My youngest sister could use a pick me up as could my brother’s scholarship foundation. That would be a toss up.
I know, I know: first world problems.
Still, nothing would please me more than to brighten a few lives…you never know how they’ll pass it on!
This package would add some much needed fun and excitement into my family and provide some help to a couple organizations on my wishlist. I am feeling optimistic, so here is the rundown for when I win. I would give one of the systems to my local church (www.sthelenaschapel.org), one to my aunts nonprofit organization in VA that helps animals (www.hollyhelp.org), and I would keep a laptop for myself. In all three cases, we either have no computer or a very old one needing replacement. Obviously because of these tough economic times, its hard to justify such a purchase, which is why it would be great to win. I would also plan on giving the mini to my son to make homework more fun and have fun in general. Unless you have a large family and or business, I do not know why someone would keep all 4 systems and not give them away. This is definitely one of the times in our lives where we need to help our neighbors, if we can (and that is not always a monetary help either). Anyway, Happy Holidays. Good luck to all. Thanks for the contest.
Okay. I don’t normally enter contests because I never win but gosh this would be awesome to win
Obviously I have no need for a bunch of computers just for me. If I won, I would definitely give much of it away that would be able to make better use of them. It just makes no sense for me to keep a wealth of computers when there are others who could use them. I’d likely donate to the Ronald McDonald House at the nearby children’s hospital. I am a childhood cancer survivor and as a kid helped raise money to build the RMH near the hospital where I was treated because it would been a lifesaver for my parents. I’m sure they could use a computer or two for the residents to use to keep in touch with family members.
Anyway, here goes nothing. I’ll be back with my tweets and my social sharing
Okay I’m not sure I did this right- haven’t used hashtags before *lol*
here’s one tweet:
http://twitter.com/momtowidget/status/1051215117
The sheer size of this giveaway is amazing. It is far too much for one person. I would divide giveaway as follows:
1. I would keep the Touchsmart to replace a fairly old and cranky Compaq Presario 6000. We are a family of 5 with two working computers, which I know is more than many people have. I use one computer in my freelance writing work. My children use the needs-to-be upgraded Compaq computer, which is slow. My oldest daughter’s middle school teachers require her to do research online and type papers at home. She has approximately 2 hours of homework per night.
2. I would give one notebook computer to my husband. When he leaves his current position he will have to return his laptop.
3. I would give the Windows Vista, MS Home, MS Windows, Mediasmart Connect, and Corel Video to my son’s former preschool. His preschool is run by a church and has a very small, if nonexistent budget, for computers, etc.
4. I would donate the other notebook computer, the HP mini, and the Kung Fu Panda DVDs to Children’s Hospital in D.C. Children’s Hospital treats many children with life-threatening illnesses or traumatic injuries. These HP products might brighten the day of a patient or parent.