Sticky, icky, FuN!

Many people make Christmas candy or cookies as one of their Christmas traditions...we are not one of those people. Although, many years ago when my kids were little, I tried to start that tradition...it ended up being alot of work, alot of mess and not much fun...so the tradition fizzled out and we didn't do it again. BUT~This year Kim asked if we could get all the girls together and make candy (she was too little to remember when we tried to do it before). I said, "SURE"...but inside

I was kind of dreading it because I didn't have fond memories of the mess that it made and the clean up process that followed. We looked at the calendar and I found the ONE and ONLY day that I had available to do it, unfortunately it didn't work for Dana or Dayna, which we were really sad about- but decided to go ahead and make candy with those of us that were able to be there. Kim wanted to make chocolate coverd pretzels, I made these coconut/almond things (like almond joy's) and Halle made cookie dough truffles. We melted chocolate, dipped and poured for hours...but we had fun. Everything turned out and tasted so yummy. I think we decided NOT to make the cookie dough truffles again. They were a little more messy and ccomplicated to make than we had thought that they would be. I don't know if we did something wrong or if that's just how they are supposed to be. BUT they tasted really good. The candy making didn't make as much of a mess this time, I think because we have added on to our kitchen since I did it last(over 10 years ago) and there was so much more room to move around in and more places to put things....and having teenagers to help do the cooking, verses 5-9 year olds, makes a big difference as well. The girls and I had a great time. We listened to Christmas music and cooked to our little hearts content. Both Kim and Halle stuck around to help with the clean up, which made the entire day more fun...that way ONE person (me) wasn't stuck with the mess. We had such a fun time, just me and the girls and I am so glad that Kim thought of it. I think its a tradition that we will try again for years to come and see if we want to keep it up...its worth a shot....I'm always up for more Christmas traditions!