Spreading Christmas Cheer

Last night I was simply too tired to write a blog. I spent all day in my kitchen, and I promise I am not exaggerating.

I decided several weeks ago that I wanted to make goodie bags for Danny's co-workers. I often order labels and stationary from a company called Colorful Images, and they had really cute personalized Christmas goodie bag/jar labels that I ordered for my gift-making. Once the labels arrived, I headed to Hobby Lobby to figure out how to make these bags attractive. I hit a fabulous 50% off sale, so my supplies came to $12.

So, with everything ready to go, I began baking and cooking at 8:30 yesterday morning. I started with Peanut Butter Pillows and realized that I was going to need another bag of white chocolate chips because one wasn't going to make enough. I went ahead and made the first batch and had Danny bring home the extra bag when he left work. Next, I made sausage balls. I make these all the time because Danny really loves them, but it always takes forever. The recipe makes a ton, so it usually takes an hour just to get them all in and out of the oven. Once these were finished, I started on a cookie recipe that doesn't have a name, so I called them Crunchy Christmas Candy Cookies. They have toffee and peanut butter and oatmeal in them, so they are quite a mixture of things. This recipe made about 90 cookies. Talk about taking a while to bake...

I utilized my cookie baking time by wrapping the individual servings of the Peanut Butter Pillows and Sausage Balls in saran wrap and securing them with bows. I had to do this for 25 people multiplied by two treats and you get 50 times I had to deal with saran wrap. I hate saran wrap. It's so hard to work with. But, I survived. Once the cookies were done, I wrapped them individually, as well. That's 75 moments with the saran wrap.

Once I was caught up with all of that, I made Haystacks. And, you guessed it, I had to wrap 25 servings of those (now we're at 100 saran wrap moments). At this point, I was about ready to scream. But, I still had to assemble the bags. While I was thinking about the best way to assemble the gifts, I started panicking because three of my treats included peanut butter and/or peanuts. What if someone had a nut allergy? In an attempt to curb this potential disaster, I made little notes to go inside each bag that explained what the treats were. Maybe that will be beneficial in some way...

So, I put tissue paper in the bottom of the bags, put one of each of the four treats on the tissue paper, threw in five mini candy canes, put the little note on top, and folded over the tops of the bags. I then punched two holes in the middle, tied green ribbon through the holes, curled the ribbon, and stuck one of my labels on the front of the bag.

I had purchased some red jingle bells to tie on with the ribbon, but I couldn't get it to work out. When Danny got home and asked why I hadn't used them, I explained my predicament. He figured out a solution, and it made the bags so much cuter! At that point I had only finished assembling about half of the bags, so he fixed the bells and helped me finish up. I was so happy to have the assistance.

Here's how they turned out:

This morning, I got up bright and early to go with Danny to spread the Christmas cheer. We personally delivered all the bags to his co-workers and took the leftovers to a friend's office. I was very satisfied with our homemade holiday gifts, but next year, with a one-year-old running around, I think we might be doing something that's a little less taxing on our time!