Going Green

All I want for Christmas is a nap!  Can I get an Amen out there? Right now I'm waiting on my  9.500th load of towels to dry, so I thought I would catch y'all up to speed with what's been going on around these parts lately. I think I mentioned that our friends Matt and Cortnee came to visit this last weekend. They are friends from our former church  and it means a lot to us that they wanted to make the trek down this way and during such a crazy time of the year. They always went so out of their way to bless us with gifts and invite us to their home. I was excited to play hostess this time.

One of the things I really wanted to do this year was bake. I did a little bit of baking last year, but it is kind of a blur. This year as I was up in my insomniac fashion watching Hallmark movies I had a psychotic break moment of inspiration and decided that it would be so incredible to find some recipes, hand write them in my Christmas binder, make these cookies and candies and make it a tradition that my girls and I will do every year until my great great grandchildren are filing for social security. It was a beautiful, beautiful thought at 2:30 in the morning in the euphoria of Hallmark movie bliss. The first step of this process was shopping for the ingredients. This is key. Because I can spend $50 but if I forget one ingredient it just throws me all off and I abandon my project immediately. It was IMPERATIVE that I leave the store with every.single.ingredient. Even if it meant asking a complete stranger if vanilla almond bark would do the same trick as a white chocolate bar which did not seem to exist in Wal-Mart's baking section. This also included a man telling me he wanted some of my cookies when he saw my buggy loaded down with enough junk to recreate candyland. I felt obliged to tell him that we might all want to see exactly how this turned out first. Well, let me tell you how this turned out.

First, I attempted to make Christmas wreaths out of cornflakes and green food coloring. I never could find red hots to decorate my wreaths, but I am proud to annouce that I did not give up on these wreaths. Well.....kind of. You see, I believe some people are genetically gifted with the ability to shape certain objects into the likeness of other objects. For the record, I am not one of those people. At least not into the shape I am ATTEMPTING to make. Let me just show you.....I call this....The Cabbage Patch. Seriously, all I needed was some little babies. In case you are wondering, they didn't taste good either. The thing is, most of what I cook is ugly, but it usually tastes good. This......well, I tried to like it. I kept eating them thinking that, I don't know, the taste would change? Leave it to me. My first attempt at baking and candy making and I think I'm Willy Wonka creating flavor changing food! Cornflake wreaths=Epic Fail. They joined their cousin, Oscar, in the trashcan.

I was a tad bit discouraged, but I pressed on. Cortnee was at my house now and I thought perhaps her presence would bring me some luck. Our next effort was Peppermint Bark and FINALLY, we had success!

You know you are in the kitchen with Emily when you hear, "Can somebody bring me the hammer?" Don't worry, this had nothing to do with my wreath cookie frustrations. We just had to crush up that peppermint. I will say, during this time of holiday stress, I would highly recommend making this candy. :)

One day I envision my great great grandchildren looking fondly at this picture saying, "Aw, there's Mamaw with the hammer and that stinkin' binder. Have we had the Hallmark channel disconnected yet?"

This is what I was dreaming of!

Kate took this picture and it was a very timely reminder to put the candy down and walk away.....

I almost forgot to tell y'all that shortly after this, I kind of set a butter wrapper on fire. Oops. I was unwrapping the 8 sticks of butter my peanut butter fudge called for (did anybody else just feel an artery close up?) and set one down too close to the gas burner. Kate wouldn't come back in the kitchen for the rest of the day. She went to the playroom saying, "Don't want my pants on fire."  Geez, what a wimp!

I actually got candy made and even some fudge. Three days later I'm still waiting for my Ho Ho Snowballs to chill enough to roll into balls. It could still happen, y'all. I wasn't even on the list to bring goodies for either of my kid's parties at school, but you better believe that if I sucessfully make homemade candy, people are gonna know about it!!!!!

Did it matter that Eli's class had a breakfast party and all the Mom's who were supposed to bring stuff brought breakfast food? Nah. Did it matter that the president of the PTO stayed up all night making cupcakes for Sarah's class that had the perfect likeness of Santa on them? Nope. I didn't care. I made goody trays for my kid's parties and didn't have to unwrap a single Little Debbie wrapper to do it! Yes, I am bragging. :) After the wreath failure of 2010, I have to keep my spirits high. I hope this will serve as inspiration to all of you out there who don't know how to boil water and think Suddenly Salad is cooking from scratch. I am one of those people. There is hope for us. We, too, can fill our children's lives with Christmas memories including hammers and small fires and scar them from ever eating cornflakes. What can I say? It's the most wonderful time of the year.....    :)