after looking back at our wonderful christmas and thinking about christmases past, i'm thinking i should make next year the year i make all (or almost all) of our gifts to other people, homemade. my seester and i are great bakers and pretty crafty so this year we made some monogrammed bags for her team and my managers and a few family members and they were very well received. maybe they were well received because they had homemade cookies, kiflis, cereal snack and chocolates in them and maybe it was just because we put time and love into them. either way they weren't that complicated (except the 21 dozen kiflis but its not like you can only make one or two dozen anyway). i know i said i'd blog a combined list of what we made, maybe more for us to have a bit of a memory of these things but if you want some ideas of what works for us in the mean time, here it is:
21 dozen kiflis (the only thing we bother to count)
macaroons
oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
cutouts
oreo truffles
buckeyes
white trash (white chocolate and peanut butter covered pretzels and cheerios)
peppermint bark
spritz cookies
peanut butter blossoms
thumbprints
brownies
chocolate crackle tops
cereal snack (modified chex mix)
the only thing i haven't made yet is the round pretzel with either a kiss or rolo smushed down by an m&m and chocolate covered peanut butter cracker sandwiches but those will get made for my new year's cocoa party. i've also made home made marshmallos for the cocoa party but i'll blog about that next week.
as for a handcrafted christmas next year i'm not thinking that i'll just bake, i'm thinking that in the coming months i should plan a craft project or two to give as gifts. since i generally shop for everyone all year long anyway, maybe crafting all year long is the way to go. i've seen a few projects that might be just right so hopefully i can keep you posted as i handcraft my christmas :)
