When I was planning for our Christmas festivities back in the summer, I was a tad bit cautious in over planning in the baking department. I decided to plan for only a few baked goodies and candy making, then reevaluate as the season progressed with my pregnancy and how I felt. I ended up feeling extremely well and we ended up adding a whole lot more baking and candy making to our Christmas schedule.
The pictures on this post are not posted in order, but I thought it would make more sense just to post the pictures in similar groups. The above picture is some peanut butter kiss cookies we baked. Sadly these were not a huge hit with my people. The cookies were excellent, but no one liked the candy kisses. Most folks picked off the candy and just ate the cookie.
We kicked off our Christmas baking with cut-out sugar cookies that we iced and loaded down with sprinkles. Of course these are a family favorite and a must for my people at every holiday.
Everyone pitched in extra this holiday baking season since I was about to have a baby any day throughout all our baking madness, lol.
Next up we had traditional cookies. We first made three different kinds and then later in the month we baked three other types of cookies.
The first three batches of cookies were mostly packaged into goodie bags and given to neighbors.
Since we gave away most of the first three batches of cookies, we also made these Christmas M&M cookies, as well as the peanut butter kiss cookies pictured above, and the Christmas tree spritz cookies pictured below.
Spritz cookies aren't exactly a favorite for my family, but there's just something about them that says Christmas to me, so I had to make them.
Red velvet white chocolate was among the first batch of cookies we made.
As well as chewy oatmeal.
Last up in the cookie baking was peanut butter white chocolate cookies.
We also made an assortment of candy.
First we made peanut butter white chocolate Krispies.
Then we made chocolate covered peanut butter ritz crackers.
As you can see by Samuel's face the children had loads of fun making candy this year. This is one of our favorites that we call chocolate peanut clusters.
And no Christmas candy making session is complete without white chocolate covered pretzels. These are always the first to be gobbled up in our family.
We tried a few new Christmas treats this year and one of them was Christmas crack or I've heard it called saltine cracker toffee. This was an interesting candy which my family did not like. We made three different versions, one with crushed pecans, one with chocolate M&M's, and one with sprinkles. I really, really liked the one with sprinkles, even if my family didn't.
These Rolo pretzel bites were also a new treat we made this year, which unfortunately, was not a favorite either. My children ended up picking the candies out of the pretzels because the pretzels became stale, even though they were stored in an airtight container. {{sigh}}
I wasn't going to make these chocolate covered peanut butter cheese-it bites, but my kiddos said they were a must. They blessed me by making every bit of them without any of my help.
Also a new addition to our Christmas candy making were these white chocolate haystacks.
Due to the fact that our family is so large and we decorate so many gingerbread houses; we also make the gingerbread cookies to make the actual houses.
Since it takes so long for the houses to set up; the big kids, mom, and dad assemble the gingerbread houses the night before we plan to decorate them.
Last but not least we also made a mega batch of Doodads. Even though Doodads aren't really under the realms of baking, it is something we make especially to enjoy during the Christmas holidays. The picture above was only half of what we actually made.
Is baking a necessity to celebrate Christmas? Absolutely, not! But it is a treasured Christmas tradition for our family. I am so glad that even though I was extremely pregnant this Christmas, we were still able to make our favorite Christmas treats and even try a few new ones.
With Love & Hope,
Jennifer
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