Sweet Treats

"Creating a little Christmas cheer to share with those you hold....Deer!!!"

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! For us, it went a little too quickly, but wonderful just the same! Unfortunately, we did all get the flu over the holiday, which has really slowed me down. (hence no post last week :))

We are finally back to a semi-healthy state of affairs around my house and are preparing for the next holiday!

Christmas, is by far my favorite holiday!

Although, I despise the cold weather of the season, there is an undeniable charm in adding those twinkle lights, garland and cuddling up by a warm cozy fire when it get's really cold outside!

Many years ago when my kids were small, we decided to start a family tradition of staying home for Christmas! Gram was around 6 years old and Emily 1.

At the time, it was a hard decision because with kids to share, it was hard not to travel to see all of our families. But it became so much of a burden to us that it really zapped our holiday spirit. Now looking back, I believe it is probably one of the best decisions we made. We learned that we could plan special times to spend Christmas with all of our family by spreading it out over the holiday time off and it made more sense for us.

This tradition has allowed us to be home on Christmas Eve and all day Christmas! The best part of that deal, is that we get to hang out in our pajamas ALL day! (Yes, I did say all day!) We are all really lazy and love to cuddle up by the fire, eating, laughing and spending time together! I am really looking forward to spending that time together this year and relaxing from our busy schedules.

Of course, before we get to that day, there are a lot of preperations that go into making the holiday special!

Another really joyous activity for us is to give sweet treats to neighbors and friends. My daughter, who loves baking, really gets into this time of year and we enjoy baking together!

One of the best things about Christmas is to show people how special and loved they are to us!

Although it is a lot of work to come up with treats and presents, traveling and

decorating; in the end.....it is indeed, the reason for the season!

My son started college this year (hard to believe that he is halfway through his freshman year already), but a friend of mine invited me to be a part of a group called "MOMS". This is a group of 12 women who meet once a month to make care packages for our college students. It has been such a nice experience getting to meet new people and to share with other parents who have college students. We talk about the kids, how they are doing, and I have learned some valuable things from these special women on how to cope with this new phase in life. The care packages have been super fun for me too! Each monthly meeting, we bring our gifts or assembled packages of goodies and compile them so that each student has a significant care package.

The spending limit is somewhere between $2-$5 per child. It takes a certain creativity to come up with some things in this price range to contribute. Since December's theme was "Christmas", of course, it seemed it would be an easy one.

There are 6 girls and 6 boys in the group. I came up with these little packages spending about $3 on each student. These would also make great teacher gifts or friend gifts for an exchange that has to be under $5.

The girls treat package is on the left and the boys on the right. They are a little different just because it is sometimes hard to find 12 of everything.

Here is a look at the girls treats.......

With each package for the girls it included:

1 package of 2 mechanical pencils, a 2015 pocket calendar, a gold or silver ornament frame, a home-made Reindeer cookie, and a mini Toberlone chocolate bar.

The boys packages looked like this:

With the boys packages, they received a 2015 desk top planner, a hand-made Reindeer cookie, and a mini Toberlone chocolate bar. The boy's planner was a bit nicer than the girls but since I couldn't find 12 of them I was able to get the girls some other little goodies for the same price. I cut the black chalkboard tissue paper to fit into the treat bag to add some decoration. I already had the plastic bags.

We bought all of the pocket calenders, ornament frames, and tissue paper in the $1 deal isle at Target!

OH MY GOSH, let me just tell you how much I love Target!!!

The 2015 calenders for the boys were $3. I ended up spending $3 for each kiddo. Well, maybe a little more by the time I bought tissue paper, cookie mix and the darling candy reindeer cookie kit. The reindeer candy kit for 12 was $5 plus $1 for sugar cookie mix.

The Reindeer holiday cookie was handmade by Emily and I. Emily loves to bake and I begged her to help me! She made the chocolate butter cream frosting that you see! It was delicious because of course, I had to try a bite! It tasted like chocolate mousse! YUM! She iced and decorated all of the cookies for me! ;)

We packaged the cookies in their own food safe bag, cutting red and white striped tissue paper to use for decoration inside. We also cut a piece of wax paper to fit over the tissue paper so that the cookie wouldn't stick to the tissue paper in all it's yummy goodness! We tied ribbon in bows and hot glued the bows to the outside of the clear package. Viola! Cuteness!

So what do you think? Pretty easy and affordable!

I hope you enjoyed our sweet treats!

Until next time.........

happy baking and decorating!

Check out this little miniature tree scape that my daughter made! It would be really cute in a mason jar or glass container for a table top display!