Want to win a cute, colorful charm for Christmas? There will be 5 lucky winners of these handmade charms, sent directly from our house in Hiroshima, Japan.
I stumbled across these charms the other day during a family trip. In fact, we spent a long while looking at the many delightful little creatures made by a local artist and this discovery turned out to be one of the day’s highlights for us all. So I asked my bilingual kids (now 13 and 10) to help me pick out 5 charms for this giveaway, then endow each one with “bilingual powers” by holding them tightly in their hands.
Maybe one of these charms from my family could help strengthen your mindfulness and your efforts each day, and ultimately, your long-term success? Or maybe you just want one ’cause they’re so darn cute?
FULL DISCLOSURE: My son was the hand model for these photos. I had to pay him a cookie.
**GIVEAWAY RESULTS**
Here are the winners, picked randomly by my kids…
DOLPHIN: Tiara in the U.S.
WHALE: Laura in Puerto Rico
ELEPHANT: Jennifer in the U.S.
GIRAFFE: Angela in Italy
SNAKE: Magali in England
Congratulations! And many thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway. (I wish I had enough charms for all of you!) Happy, language-filled holidays from me and my kids! 
To enter this free giveaway, just follow these three simple steps…
1. First, please share the post below via social media, using one of these links (they go to the same page)…
The Perfect Christmas Gift for Bilingual and Multilingual Families
https://bilingualmonkeys.com/gift-for-bilingual-families
(or)
https://buff.ly/2yvVJOX
Friends, I’m using the “honor system” here—I won’t have my kids hunt you down and bite your ankles if you don’t share that post. But it would be a big help to me if you did (on Facebook, Twitter, etc.) as I’m now trying to raise wider awareness of my book for the Christmas shopping season. Thank you for your support!
2. Then come back to this page and leave a comment here with the following information. (And please proofread your comment, before submission, to check that the information is complete.)
1. Your first name and where you live (Example: Adam in Japan)
2. Your children and their ages (Example: Girl, 13 and Boy, 10)
3. Your two (or more) languages (Example: Japanese, English, and Spanish)
4. Name at least one new minority language resource that you plan to give to your children this Christmas. (Example: My daughter now likes to listen to pop music in English so I plan to give her the new Taylor Swift CD. And my son has become a baseball fan—of both the Japanese and American baseball leagues—so I’ll look for a couple of good books in English on this subject.)
3. All entries must be submitted by the morning of Thursday, November 30 (Japan time). On that day, the comments will be printed out and cut apart to serve as entry slips for the drawing. The slips will be placed in a big, empty bucket and Lulu and Roy will each select two winners, then squabble over who gets to pick the fifth one. All winners will be chosen randomly, with eyes shut tight. And when the selections are made, the winners will be matched with the charms in the order that they appear in this post. For example, the first winner will get the dolphin charm, the second winner will get the whale charm (with that cool Eiffel Tower on it), etc. In other words, though the 5 winners will be unable to choose which charm they receive, they can enjoy the excitement of the “surprise” they’ll find in their packages.
I’ll then contact the lucky winners by email, update this post with the results, and mail off the charms to destinations worldwide.
While I won’t be responding to these comments, my kids and I look forward to reading them. (And don’t worry, we won’t tell what you’re planning to give your children for Christmas!)
Thank you for entering the giveaway, and thank you for sharing the link with the holiday appeal for my book! Warm wishes from Hiroshima!
19 Responses
1. Mayken in France
2. Girl, 7 (and a half)
3. French and German (and a little bit of English now and then)
4. Don’t tell my daughter, but she’ll get the second Harry Potter illustrated edition in our minority language, and probably tons of other books both for reading herself and for me reading to her. (I need to get myself to a minority language bookstore soon. My poor wallet is going to suffer.)
PS Those charms are totally adorable! And thanks to Roy for hand-modeling!
1) Amy in France
2) 5 years old and 19 months old girls
3) English, Spanish and French
4) The box set of the complete collection of Roger Hargreaves’s Mr Men books (already got them the box set of the complete collection of Little Miss last year 🙂 )
1) Talia in Illinois
2. Boy, 16 months
3. English and Spanish
4. My son loves cars and trucks (anything that goes!) and also magnets. Looking for some good vehicle books written for Spanish speaking kids (not translations) and alphabet magnets with pictures.
1) Sandra in Texas
2) I’m a teacher, so my 16 students, 5 years old.
3) Spanish, English and French – learned in that order.
4) Saving up to buy bilingual (English/Spanish) books for my students.
1) Angela in Italy
2) Girl, 11 and Boy, 8
3) English and Italian
4) I always get them each a book or two in English and we watch some Christmas movies in English together during the holidays. English is still their strongest spoken language, but they both need to work on reading and especially writing in English. Any suggestions to help with writing skills would be appreciated. 🙂
1) Leo in Hong Kong
2) Girl, to be born in Jan 2018
3) English, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese
4) I will get phonetic cards (with pictures) in both English and Chinese for my newborn daughter. I will also let her watch authentic language materials in youtube.
1. Tiara in Texas!
2. Boy 2 and girl 6 months
3. English and Japanese
4. I will gift my children with the kodomo challenge from Benesse and more posters to put on the wall in Japanese to heighten that captive reading!
If I win I would not be mad if you added one to the box lol (we already have our hiragana/katakana up in their room).
1. Kelly from Minnesota, USA
2. Two boys, ages 7 and 5
3. English (native), Japanese (learning)
4. Christmas gifts: probably (more) books, and I might try to find a Disney (or at least a kids’) movie dubbed into Japanese.
1. Ruth in Mexico
2. Girl, age 3.5
3. English and Spanish, with an occasional sprinkling of what I remember of French and Romanian.
4. I want to get her a Christmas book in English – something like The Night Before Christmas, if I can find it, and we’re also going to make an advent calendar this year, so we can practise numbers with that. And watch Christmas films in English too!
1. Magali in London
2. Girl 4 and boy 2
3. French, English and Spanish
4. Both my children will be getting a bespoke story book in French with them as main characters. One about unicorns for my daughter and one about the ocean for my son.
1. Raquel in Spain
2. 4-year-old girl and 1-year-old boy
3. Spanish and English
4. Audiobooks in English and English speaking toys.
1. Esperanza in Spain
2. Boy, age 6
3. Spanish, English and Basque
4. My son loves comic books. I guess he’s attracted to the images. He’s a big fan of the Smurfs. So this Christmas I’m getting him a few more comics.
1. Alisa in France
2. Boy, 11, and Boy, 9
3. English (ml) & French (ML)
4. Books, books, and more books! I’ve found some graphic novels for my 9-year-old who is a bit of a reluctant reader when it comes to “real” books, so I’m hoping this will help encourage him to read in English. My 11-year-old LOVES to read in English, so I’ve picked up new books & further books in series he already has.
1. Jennifer in Maryland
2. Boy, 15, girl, 13, boy, 11, boy, 6, and boy, 4
3. English and French
4. I am going to find another French movie for the kids and I’m buying more magnetic letters so we can start playing with French phonograms and reading. I also might get more music CDs for my teens. Thanks Adam!
1) Laura in Puerto Rico
2) Boy 7, Girl 5
3) English, Spanish
4) I found Star Wars Lego Spanish books! Score!
Have a great day!
1. Olivia in the USA
2. Boy, 3 and Girl, 4.5 months
3. German and English, with a little Ukrainian thrown in
4. My kids will receive a CD of “Peter und der Wolf,” which I enjoyed greatly as a kid. Plus, I’m working on getting another “granny au pair” from Germany to help out our family and speak in German with the kids.
Donna from Italy
Arianna aged 3
English & Italian
This year adding to our super Mr Men and Little Miss books that colourfully teach English adjectives with fun characters, I read them as a child and welcome the new modern updates. Doing the voice for Mr Noisy is soooo much fun.
Sandra in Germany
Boy 4 + girl 2
German + English
We’re flying “home” to the states for Xmas where my parents have a lot of fun English books waiting for them. I asked my mom to buy books that I used to love as a kid (Curious George, Berenstain Bears) that I can read to them with the same passion as when I was little. 🙂
1. Juliana in the UK
2. One girl, 27 months and one on the way (unknown gender)
3. German and English
4. I asked all my relatives for German books and audio books as we already have loads in English. I also want to get her a CD with contemporary German children’s songs and my parents will visit during Advent as I won’t be able to travel home to Austria for Christmas this year due to being super pregnant then.