Hey everyone! Heh, finally managed to remind myself to take pictures that I needed to of certain things and with that, I shall introduce you all to the Christmas goodies!

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First off comes Christmas dinner! We ate at home this year, and let me tell you, it felt very nice to not rush, to not force ourselves to pack everything up and be ready by 10am or Noon. This was probably one of the most relaxed Christmases I’ve had in a long while!

The Christmas dinner consisted of chicken; which we covered in bacon and smoked for about 4-5 hours the few days before Christmas, pinto beans; not canned, but home cooked, homemade rolls, German potato salad; done up in a Texan way using cilantro and Texas beef sausage in the mix, cranberry sauce, and of course a holiday meal would never be complete without a grand serving of gravy, which was homemade with chicken stock, fats, as well as oils from the sausage when it was cooked! The meal was very filling (seriously, that’s without eating anything but candy the beginning of the day) and it was extremely delicious!

The next goodies? Desserts! Homemade candies in the flavors of:

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Cherry, lemon, mint, peppermint, maple, and caramel! I had a blast making the candies, and although I may have lost some feeling in my fingertips from when I made the lemon drop candies, it’s something I’d happily do for years to come. The mints, both flavors, are made with a sugar paste which is basic fondant, and it hardens to a melt in your mouth quickly kind of strongly flavored candy.

The next big thing I spent an entire night+ working on, were my pumpkin spice flavored,Christmas tree cupcakes!

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I immensely enjoyed the process that went into this. The gift boxes and the ornaments are made of the same fondant as the mints, and were formed and dried before being painted with food coloring, decorated with a fondant bow for the boxes, and stuck on the trees and painted for the ornaments. The more I look at the above pic, I see a cute little tree in its stand, waiting for some giant to come by and pluck up one of the gift boxes!

I hope everyone of you had a very wonderful holidays and Christmas, and I hope you all have an amazing new year. I’m blessed to have been able to make all these items, share them with not only family, but share the images and my thoughts of the experiences with all of you. I’m extremely thankful for all of you. I know I haven’t published any of my Bloggaries, but don’t you worry. Come the new year’s celebrations passing, I’ll be pumping out the Bloggaries (finally!)!

Thanks for reading everyone. Much love to all of you! ❤