I wanted to make something great for my readers during the Christmas period. I mean, everyone of us like sto remember Christmas as a special moment, whether you pass it with your family, friends or online. So I thought, what about giving away something to my readers and offer them some exclusive content they won’t find anywhere?

This is the result. The Christmas Apps Tree is an event which features interviews with famous designers, bloggers and developers,some cool guest posts and a huge giveaway of Mac and iPhone apps. And by huge I mean more than 500 licenses up for grabs, with dead simple rules to enter! You’ll find well known apps such as Pixelmator, Espresso, 1Password, Mailplane, Dropzone and Socialite but also little gems like Tags, MoneyBook, EmailBackup Pro and ForeverSave. Apps for web designers / developers, software developers, bloggers and “regular” Mac users.

This is the giveaway post, the content will follow during these 7 days on MacStories.

Details after the jump!

How to Enter the Giveaway

Entering the contest is simple. All you have to do is:

- Follow me on Twitter (@storiesofmac) and tweet this message: “MacStories Christmas Apps Tree - 450 Licenses of Mac and iPhone Apps Up for Grabs Worth $10.000 http://mcstr.es/t/97 #appstree”

and

- Leave a comment here with the link to your tweet, telling me which apps you like most.

I’ll randomly pick up the winners on Tuesday, December 22nd.

You can only leave one comment, but you can spread the word on Twitter / Facebook / whatever as much as you like..Maybe some other apps will join the event ;)

Be sure to keep following me on Twitter! I daily tweet a lot of interesting stuff about Mac and iPhone apps, tweaks and tutorials. If you don’t wanna use Twitter, you can fan MacStories on Facebook too.

Good luck!

The Applications

Things - 2 licenses

The award winning application from CulturedCode, Things is “Getting Things Done” app that provides a simple and elegant interface together with an amazing user experience.

Pixelmator - 7 licenses

A famous image editor built only for Mac OS X, Pixelmator is no doubt a great piece of software. The user interface is awesome – way better than Photoshop in my opinion – it’s fast, stable and user-friendly. With the recent 1.5 update Pixelmator gained some nice features like the Slice Tool, which will come in handy for many designers who’d like to use Pixelmator for their works. But please remind, Pixelmator is not Photoshop. That said, it’s a must have.

Espresso - 5 licenses

Very similar to Coda, Espresso is developed by the same creators of CSSEdit and it’s extensible thanks to plugins called Sugars. I’ve never used it deeply, but I’m sure a lot of users seem to appreciate it.

Dropzone - 15 licenses

An app that sits in your Dock and lets you perform many actions like image uploading with a single drag & drop. Read my review here if you missed it.

Daylite - 2 licenses

A professional app to manage your business, whether you’re a freelancer or you a have a team. You can create calendars, arrange meetings, assign tasks and more.

TextExpander - 1 license

Text substitutions to the next level. A terrific time saver.

Billings - 2 licenses

The best invoicing application for Mac. Period.

xScope - 3 licenses

Layout and screen measurement utility, the Mac-way.

Acorn - 5 licenses

Another alternative image editor, which has recently gone under a major update that made this app even more stable and complete. I personally use it for quick stuff and minor adjustments and it works fine.

Tags - 5 licenses

Have you ever wanted to tag everything on your Mac? From folders to mail messages, Tags is the best application to organize (with tags) your digital life. And the upcoming version 2 rocks, trust me.

Palettes (iPhone) - 5 promo codes

Palettes is a powerful iPhone productivity tool for creating and maintaining color palettes.

Picturesque - 2 licenses

A quick and easy image editor which automates some processes with its built-in features.

IconBuilder - 3 licenses

IconBuilder is a filter for use with Adobe Photoshop or Fireworks that makes creating icons a snap.

Black Ink - 5 licenses

Crossword puzzles on your Mac!

MarsEdit - 5 licenses

A desktop publishing tool which supports various services like WordPress and Squarespace. John Gruber loves it.

DrawIt - 3 licenses

From the same developer of Fontcase, DrawIt it’s a vector editing app that supports bitmap-like image filters.

Silverback - 2 licenses

A usability testing software for designers and developers which supports video and voice recording, export to Quicktime and remote control.

MacSnapper - 5 licenses

MacSnapper is a tool to make from annotated snapshots and images awesome web pages and PDFs in seconds.

Textmate - 2 licenses

Simple and powerful text editor. It has a huge number of fans.

Money - 10 licenses

Simple and elegant financial and accounting management. One of the best financiall apps available for Mac OS X.

Fontcase - 3 licenses

An elegant font manager and previewer from Bohemian Coding. An award winning application, easy to use and packed with a beautiful UI. Read my review here if you missed it.

Manhour - 3 licenses

Manhour lets you decide what your time is worth, and when. It records time spent working on a particular project and automatically tracks how much you’re due in fees, using the appropriate rates for when work was done.

Pathfinder - 10 licenses

A great alternative to Mac OS default Finder.app, Path Finder brings support for tabbed navigation, dual panes and more. For advanced users, it’s a must.

CSSEdit - 5 licenses

Edits and previews CSS. The app of choice of many designers, though I still prefer Coda’s built-in CSS editor.

Slammer - 5 licenses

Slammer gives you any grid you want, anywhere you want: Typographic Grids, Golden Sections, Fibonacci series or Rule of Thirds. Thats not all, Slammer also has Rulers, Crosshairs, Magnifier, Measurements & Screenshots. Slammer is a must have for any designer.

Tweetie - 5 licenses

The best Twitter client for Mac. Multi-accounts, third party services integration, Twitter searches all in one window. The upcoming update will add support for Retweets, Lists and many other stuff and improvements.

Tinygrab - 5 premium subscriptions

Very similar to FileShuttle, Tinygrab also allows you to upload directly to its built-in web interface. Read my review here if you missed it.

Notebook - 1 license

A full featured organizer for your digital life.

BannerZest Pro - 1 license

Flash animations made simple. Great app for people who need flash on their website.

Times - 5 licenses

A rather unique feeds reader which actually seems a real newspaper on your Mac desktop. You won’t find an app like this anywhere else.

Opacity - 1 license

Opacity is an easy to use program for drawing graphics for the screen. It’s great for making resolution independent images and icons for applications and the web.

BrushPilot - 10 licenses

Preview and manage your Photoshop brushes without entering Photoshop. It’s the only application that can do this on Mac.

Mindnode - 3 licenses

Organize and outline your thoughts.

Spotify - 4 invites

The invite-only music streaming service which lets you listen to pretty much everything for free. I’m giving away 4 invites.

Quickscale - 10 licenses

Quickscale is designed to let you scale a large of of pictures to a desired size and format.

Screenflow - 1 license

The best solution to record screencast for your website. The recent update made the app even more powerful and feature-rich.

Idea Organizer (iPhone) - 5 promo codes

Organize your ideas on the go through a sexy interface. Read my review here if you missed it.

1Password - 3 licenses

Passwords manager and automatic form filler. But it’s so much more than this, it’s simply one of the best apps for Mac.

Gity - 5 licenses

Manage your GitHub repo directly from your Mac. Totally awesome.

Concentrate - 5 licenses

The perfect application to eliminate distractions and concentrate on the tasks you have to accomplish.  A must have for freelancers.

Mailplane - 6 licenses

If you’re a Gmail user and you like the Gmail native interface, then Mailplane is for you. Mailplane brings all the Gmail features to a desktop app, with a lot of great additions like drag & drop and multi-accounts.

ExpanDrive - 10 licenses

This is cool guys. ExpanDrive mounts a FTP / SFTP server as a Mac OS volume. This means you can access your remote files as you would do for a normal folder. Awesome.

Delibar - 5 licenses

Another menubar application, developed by ShinyFrog, which allows you to manage / search / share your Delicious bookmarks. Read my review here if you missed it.

Flux - 5 licenses

One of the most gorgeous WYSIWYG editors out there, combines powerful features and a simple (yet effective) interface. Read my review here if you missed it.

Img2Icns - 5 licenses

Easily convert .icns files to .png and more. Simple and powerful.

Socialite - 3 licenses

Formerly known as Eventbox, then Realmac Software bought the app and decided to rename it Socialite. But the core it’s still the same: Socialite packs many social networks in one place. It supports Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Google Reader, but many others will come soon.

ForeverSave - 5 licenses

ForeverSave automatically creates versions of your documents. In case you lose one, just restore it and continue your work.

CodeCollector Pro - 1 license

Collect and organize your snippets of code in the most complete code manager app out there.

Minim - 1 license

The perfect app for music and podcasts creators.

Timenet - 8 licenses

Keep track of your business.

Master of My Domain - 5 licenses

Keep track and manage your domains. A great tool for web designers and developers.

Forklift - 5 licenses

More than a simple FTP app, Forklift is a complete file manager for both your remote and local files. But most of all, it’s fast. Seriously.

PListEdit Pro - 3 licenses

With this application you can take control over your .plist files.

EasyVPN - 5 licenses

A simple solution to set up a VPN connection.

EmailBackup Pro - 5 licenses

The best app to completely backup your mail library.

Default Folder X - 5 licenses

Breeze - 5 licenses

CleanMyMac - 2 licenses

A great tool for the maintenance of your Mac, it lets you delete cache, language files and more.

MacHider - 2 licenses

MacHider is an app that puts out of sight your confidential information from third parties or other unwanted eyes.

Your private files and folders can be organized into groups, so you may easily and quickly locate them whenever you need. Simply organize them by category, and keep your private files structured.

MoneyBook (iPhone) - 5 promo codes

Manage your finances with elegance. Read my review here if you missed it.

PopChar X - 5 licenses

Insert special characters in your documents without having to remember keyboard combinations.

KeyCue - 5 licenses

Find, remember, and learn menu shortcuts and increase your productivity.

Typinator - 5 licenses

Typinator is an automatic text software that boosts your productivity and eliminates errors by automating the process of inserting frequently used text and graphics and auto-correcting typing errors.

DEVONthink Pro - 1 license

DEVONthink is the one database for all your digital files, a practical, powerful document manager that uses built-in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help you collect and organize everything from emails to PDFs, whether they’re located on your Mac or on the web.

DEVONagent - 1 license

DEVONagent provides meaningful answers to your questions by making sense of the results provided by popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and more.

DomainBrain -  3 licenses

DomainBrain is a handy tool for Mac OS X that helps webmasters and web designers keep track of server and login information for websites they maintain.

AppDelete - 5 licenses

AppDelete is an uninstaller for Macs that will remove not only Applications but also Widgets, Preference Panes, Plugins and Screensavers along with their associated files.

Justinmind Prototyper - 2 licenses

Easily create fully functional wireframes for your web, desktop and mobile applications, and reduce software project costs. Generate your HTML high-fidelity wireframes.

[Update #1] 150 New Licenses

Twitbit - 30 promo codes

A twitter client which supports push notifications and has a very good user interface.

Years - 5 promo codes

A slick calendar on your iPhone. Read my review if you missed it.

DaisyDisk - 5 licenses

Sexy graphs for your Mac hard drive. In my opinion, one of the most beautiful applications I’ve ever tried.

Broadersheet - 3 promo codes

A new twist on news reading on the iPhone. Read my review if you missed it.

iStat - 5 promo codes

Monitor your iPhone battery, RAM and more. Also connects to the Mac via iStat server. A must have.

Consume - 10 promo codes

iPhone usage monitor application. Already works with many international providers, more to come in the future updates.

Keypoint - 10 promo codes

Create stunning presentations on your iPhone.

Ecoute - 2 licenses

Control your iTunes music library without using iTunes. Read my review if you missed it.

Coversutra - 5 licenses

Awesome iTunes desktop controller.

Tipulator - 5 promo codes

Ever wondered what’s the right tip?

Groceries - 5 promo codes

Beautiful groceries list, one of the best and most useful I’ve seen.

Read it Later - 2 promo codes

The best “read later” application available. Read my review if you missed it.

Sparks - 10 promo codes

Interesting application to manage and keep track of your ideas. Awesome UI.

Firetask - 10 promo codes

A very nice GTD app for iPhone, with a cool native interface.

ShareTool - 10 licenses

ShareTool is the fastest, easiest, and most secure way to access all of your Bonjour services from anywhere in the world.

Playback - 10 licenses

Playback allows you to share your media with any Playstation 3, Xbox360, or other UPnP compatible device. It automatically integrates with iTunes, iPhoto, Aperture, Photobooth, Adobe Lightroom 2, and more!

Espionage - 2 licenses

Protect private folders and applications with a dead simple interface. Useful.

Keymote - 7 promo codes

Keymote wirelessly controls practically anything on your Mac from your iPhone or iPod Touch using shortcuts.

Flickery - 2 licenses

Manage your Flickr account from your Mac desktop. Read my review if you missed it.

Birdbrain - 3 promo codes

A unique Twitter application which collects data from your Twitter account. If you’re serious about Twitter, Birdbrain is a must.

Decloner - 10 licenses

Find and remove duplicates on your Mac. Read my review if you missed it.

[Update #2 90 New Licenses ]

HotLinks - 40 promo codes

Awesome app from the 14yo developer Jonah Grant, HotLinks lets you create “hot shortcuts” for favorite phone numbers and people on social networking websites. You can also enter custom URLs to third party apps like Tweetie or Facebook.

Tap Forms - 10 promo codes

Complete database app for iPhone. Powerful and elegant.

Parachute - 10 Licenses

Easy backups for your Mac. I’ve already talked about it here.

Renamer - 10 Licenses

Batch renaming app for Mac OS X. The best around, in my opinion.

MainMenu - 10 Licenses

Maintenance scripts in the menubar. Another awesome app from CreativeBe.

VectorDesigner - 5 Licenses

VectorDesigner is a vector drawing application designed to be simple, intuitive and powerful to use. It has everything you need to create fancy vector graphics such as posters, brochures, stickers, logos, web graphics, t-shirt and more.

iDeskCal - 3 Licenses

iDeskCal embeds your calendar on your desktop, above your wallpaper but below your desktop items. With iDeskCal you can quickly and effortlessly know exactly what is on your calendar for the current day, and beyond.

Delicious Library - 5 Licenses

Catalog your books, movies, music, software, toys, tools, electronics, & video games. Possibly one of the coolest, sexiest and most useful apps for Mac in my opinion.