GTKY- Holiday Treats addition

[mommyatty]

1. Do you make holiday treats?
2. Do you buy any special holiday treats?

Bonus: Share your recipes!

[rere]

For candy-I make white chocolate pretzels, poor mans turtles, Oreo balls and Ritz bits in chocolate.

Cookies - I make homemade - with lard - yikes I know, but I don't mess with a passed down recipe. With the milk and powder sugar icing with food coloring. My kids love to make these. It is a disaster in the kitchen, but they eat them so fast, I will probably go through 3 batches. (I make a double first off).

The day before Christmas Eve, we have what we call Christmas Extravaganza - named it years ago. Dh and I get in the kitchen early afternoon with wine. I make sausage balls, ham rolled up in crescent rolls with butter and garlic salt, and what people call hanky pankys (no idea). This is melted Velveeta and sausage with Worchester (?) sauce and Italian seasoning put on rye bread and baked. I also do a veggie tray and a turkey breast in the crockpot for DS. We snack on it through the holidays and will take some of it to MIL's get together with is mostly heavy apps which I love.

[twinmomma]

rere, Please adopt me. Your Christmas Extravaganza sounds amazing!

My family has "Cookie Weekend" at my mom's. This year it was the weekend before Thanksgiving. My mom, sister, and sister in law each come with their stand mixers and recipes. My mom put in double ovens in their new kitchen partially because of this weekend... We bake all weekend long. This year we made just over 600 cookies. They all end up packed up and labelled in the freezer and for each event that anyone has, we put together a platter as needed or gift them out.

Full disclosure: I'm not a baker, so I help in small parts and bring prosecco and supervise my children. But I love spending two full days in the kitchen with everyone. It's such a fun time!

[mommyatty]

1. Every year, we would travel to Illinois for Christmas and stay about a week. On the day we got there, my grandma would have big Tupperware containers of sugar cookies ready to frost and decorate. It was my favorite thing. So we do sugar cookies, peanut butter blossoms, and those peanut butter cookies made in a mini muffin pan with peanut butter cups pressed in them. We also melt chocolate in the crock pot and dip stuff in it. Pretzel sticks rolled in cookie crumbs and glitter sugar and sprinkles, big marshmallows, little pretzel sticks. We sometimes make buckeyes, but those are a ton of work.
2. Rolos. When I was little, you could only get Rolos at Christmas so they were always in our stockings.

[librarychica]

I don’t bake. I do make easy candy though!

Peppermint bark: www.allrecipes.com/recipe/217827/peppermint-bark/

Peppermint fudge is a kid making favorite because you can use the microwave: www.tablespoon.com/recipes/microwave-candy-cane-fudge/a336175d-5319-4ada-8766-e01000a336ef

Cinnamon peanut brittle: www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/cinnamon-peanut-brittle/

[mrsGreeko]

I do cookie extravaganza every December with all of my cousins/nieces/cousins kids. This will be the 15th year I’ve done it. We make sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies and Belina Kansa (family recipe, probably similar to Berliner Kranser, but the name morphed through the years). My mom also usually brings stuff to make a cookie or two (spritz or something). I make toffee and fudge as well. Then every kid takes some home. I think this year it will be my 3 kids, 3 teenaged cousins, my 2 nieces, and one of my cousin’s two little girls. So 10 kids ranging from almost 1 to 19. The first year I did it, there were three kids who were 4 (the 19 year old this year), probably 8 or 9, and probably 11 (she now sends her 2 little girls). It’s crazy fun and all the kid look forward to it allllllllll year and I would break their little hearts if I didn’t do it one year.

[mae0111]

I love to bake! I usually make frosted ricotta cookies, cut out butter cookies (both with homemade butter cream frosting), chocolate white chocolate chip cookies, chocolate crinkle cookies with peppermint patties on top. Also Oreo balls are a hit. M&M cookies if I have the candy in hand. I also started making marshmallows and gumdrops (fruity, not spice drops) for the kids’ Christmas bazaar.

For us on Christmas, I make cinnamon scones. DD2 loves them! I made cinnamon rolls once, but everyone thought they were too sweet. Since it’s just us on Christmas morning, I usually make pancakes for the kids and eggs for DH and I.

I can dig up the recipes later if anyone is interested.

I used to put together platters of cookies for all of the departments I worked closely with during the year - IT, Legal, Compliance, Sales, other areas of Marketing, and my own department. I couldn’t get gifts for everyone, so this was the best way to cover everyone for me. Is also send in a couple of platters with DH. Now I’m not working and he’s a one-man show, so I send them to neighbors and in to school.

[waverly]

I am not a baker nor do I love cooking but i’ve definitely done way more cooking than baking. DH makes a mean key lime pie.

[186momx]

I really like to bake but have cut way down the last couple years. I used to make a batch of cookies each week starting October 1st and I would store them in the freezer and do big cookie platters for friends. Well friends have moved away, homecooked stuff is not allowed at school so I juts had all these cookies for us. Now I make 3 or 4 batches of cookies I really enjoy. Cut out cookies with frosting, chocolate cut outs that get sandwiched together with mint frosting they taste like homemade Oreos, peanut butter with Hershey kisses on top, and then I try something new. This year I want to try a cake mix cookie (red velvet rolled in powder sugar).

[madringal]

1- DH's family has an annual tradition of making peanut brittle each year. About 100 lbs of it. It's a full days work and it is back breaking! My girls and I usually have a day of making pumpkin rolls. We love it, and gift it to friends and neighbors.

2 - Nope, don't buy anything special.

[ilovelucyvv]

1. My mom makes my Grandmother's recipe sugar cookies. Those are my favorite. I have made them myself from time to time but mine aren't as good.
2. We always buy chocolate candies and nuts for the holidays as well.

[polecat8]

My brother and I make pizzelles for Christmas every year. We use a recipe from my great-grandmother.
DH will usually make a couple batches of cookie dough and freeze them throughout the month. Then he'll start baking cookies during the week before Christmas. On Xmas eve, we'll bake a batch of cookies with the kids.

We don't buy anything special for Xmas, but we do buy sparkling grape juice and a New Year's pretzel for New Year's eve.