Treat Day- Christmas Is Almost Here

After a mini-meltdown last night over cleaning, Christmas, and wrapping, I regrouped, and slept. Today, I jumped right into the last of the wrapping, which was for extended family. On Thursday, we'll make the 90 minute trek up to Mount Pleasant for Christmas with Nick's family. On Saturday, we'll make the 70 minute trek over to Sparta for Christmas with my dad & step-mom, then with my step-mom's family.

I had to get everything wrapped and sorted still for all those get togethers, so I turned on a Christmas movie and got to work. As soon as that was done, I tackled Christmas treats. Oh, boy, did I tackle them.

Today,  I made Christmas Crack, Peppermint Crack, and so far, 4 dozen mini-muffin Chocolate Chip Cookies, complete with chocolate melted into the center. I still have Turtle Cookies to make, more chocolate chip cookies, and then, both peanut butter & gingerbread cookies.

 

I love warm gingerbread cookies, all soft and squishy straight from the oven. Oh, so delicious!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night, before my melt down, I made Christmas snowflake coasters, inspired by Jessica's over at Mad in Crafts.  I found the snowflakes in blue, though, not white. Luckily, I had plenty of white glitter felt on hand to use with it.

This morning while I was wrapping, I was trying to decide what to do with them, and decided to turn them back into ornaments by adding blue ribbon loops to each one. From there, I added a small bath & body item to the front, and wrapped them up for the younger girls on Nick's side of the family. He has a younger sister, and 2 girl cousins who are in their early 20's. These made great gifts for them, and were frugal- I had all sorts of samples on hand that I picked up at Bath & Body Works for $.50 each months ago. The ornaments cost about $1.50 to make 6 of them, so each gift cost me less than $1.00!

 

So, while I was in a Christmas funk yesterday, I've decided to just go with the flow. I will finish up what baking I can today, and that's that. It will be enough. What baking I'm doing today will be split up for taking to the various parties, and another small plate to my neighbor across the street. He's such a helpful neighbor- he's used live traps to get animals out of our backyard, he fixes our cars dirt cheap, lends us tools when we need them, and helps when we need help.

I sent over a plate of goodies earlier this month, and he told me it's the only time he gets homemade goodies, when I send them over to him. So, I decided I'd send another plate over there.

Merry Christmas, everyone! May your sanity stay in tact, along with mine!

Homemade "Peeps"

Today as I was cruising through the blogosphere, I cam across a blog I hadn't seen yet: Frugal Family Fun Blog, by Valerie. It has some pretty cool frugal fun ideas posted, and I'm only on page 2!

The idea that caught my eye, however, were Super Easy Marshmallow Pumpkins. She's right- they are super easy, and look like they'd be fun at any party for the people who love peeps.

It got me thinking, though... how could those translate into Christmas treats? They could easily be made for Thanksgiving, as is- cute little pumpkins as a cute, easy to make Thanksgiving treat. I started considering peeps themselves. Already I've seen the Snowmen and the Christmas Tree peeps on the shelves. But, the tree would require cutting and shaping, and the Snowman would require attaching two of them together.

Then it hit me- Christmas Ornaments! You could make all sorts of colors, and use gel icing to draw designs on the front of them, and use silver or gold metallic gel icing to put the blob on top!

I am so excited to try these now. I do believe we may have to make a small handful for Thanksgiving, and some more for the various Christmas parties we attend. I know they'll be a hit!

Thanks for the great idea, Valerie!