Continuing the spirit while the weather is cold

Last week my friend and her two children came over for an evening of Christmas cookie baking.  Only in deciding what items didn't require much effort for four children and two adults we ended up making Christmas candy, no baking needed.

Each year my friend gets together with people from work and they bake and drink liquor and bake and drink liquor all day and in the end they return home with a headache and giant tubs of Christmas goodies.  Each year I beg her to come over and do the same for me.  This year the day and time worked out well.  She and I went grocery shopping while the kids were in school, and she did some prep work while I was at the doctor with Connie.  We all met up after school at my house.

First recipe was buckeyes.  These are delicious peanut butter balls dipped in melted chocolate.  We figured this was a no brainer for the kids, rolling dough into balls.

 Turns out that it wasn't so easy because the "dough" was so moist.  The kids were rolling away and pieces of "dough" were falling on to the table top and the floor, where Elliot was gobbling it down almost before it hit the tile.  SueG finally gave each child a tin to roll over, and then she taught them how to squeeze and then roll.

At first the balls were too big, and my job was to re-size them.  Then the balls were too small, and my job was to re-size them.  Eventually the balls were good enough because we needed to move on to the next activity.

Madison and Alex did the chocolate dipping with toothpicks, and into the refrigerator they went.  They were delicious.  Quite sweet and very peanut buttery.

The next candy we made were haystacks.  These are made with peanut butter, butterscotch chips, peanuts, marshmallows, and Chinese noodles.  We melted the peanut butter and butterscotch chips and then added the other ingredients.  The kids got to use their hands to mix and create.  These little haystacks are a mixture of sweet and salty.

The last recipe we did was peppermint bark.  We unwrapped peppermint candies, put them into a bag, and I beat them with a hammer into pieces.  We melted white chocolate chips and added the peppermint pieces in and then spread the mixture into a pan.  We would have drizzled milk chocolate over the top, but alas, we found we had used all of our chocolate in the buckeyes.  Oops.

All of the items had to be chilled, and with not a lot of refrigerator room we put the trays outside in our chilly Florida weather. By the time we were done with the dishes, cooking and eating dinner, and cleaning up the kitchen the candy was ready to be bagged and/or eaten.  We did both.

The next morning...the dog threw up at 5:00 AM from his sampling of the Christmas candy, but I assure others that the candy is safe for consumption despite all of the kids' hands preparing it!