Holiday Treats (and recipes)

It's sort of become a yearly tradition that I make little holiday treat bags/buckets for some of my friends and family.  It started with my family-- myself, my mom, sisters and Grandma get together every year and there's lots of baking and chocolate dipping fun.  We still get together, but I've taken some ideas here and there and done some baking on my own each year to give as gifts.  It's so much fun, and this year was even better because I had a little "helper"!  Each year I make a little assortment of things, and it's never the same assortment as the years past, though some "classics" stick around.

First up in the goodies was "Christmas Cheer Mix", which I apologize for not getting a picture of.  I don't really have a recipe per say for this one, but essentially you mix up some Cheerios (I used multi-grain because that makes it low fat and healthy... bahaha!), some peanuts, and some M&M's and then you smother it all in white chocolate.  Sounds simple, right?  Watch out, it's totally delicious and addicting.  Christmas Cheer mix is a family tradition.

The next thing in the buckets was chocolate dipped peanut butter pretzels.  Costco carries the MOST delicious peanut butter filled pretzels I have ever had in my entire life.  They are SO addicting, and the Kroh's are SO hooked on them.  A friend suggested chocolatizing them and I couldn't resist. Nom, nom, nom!

The next thing in the buckets was "Chocolate Dipped Snowballs."  They're sort of my grown up take on Rice Krispie Treats.  I use the basic rice krispie treat recipe, but instead make them with honey bunches of oats.  Roll them up into balls and then of course dip them in Chocolate.  Leeland loved mixing these up. 

Melt down 3 tablespoons of butter in a pot, then add a 10 ounce bag of marshmallows and melt those down.  Remove the pot from the heat and add in 6 cups of Honey Bunches of Oats and mix them up.  While they're warm roll up the balls and set them aside to "set."  Once they have set you dip them in your favorite melted chocolate.

Lastly this year in our buckets was Snickerdoodles! And here's the recipe for these lovelies:
Ingredients:
2 sticks of butter                 3 cups flour
1 cup sugar                         1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup brown sugar           1 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs                                 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon vanilla              Some cinnamon/Sugar

Cream the butter with the sugars, then add in the eggs and the vanilla.  Mix all your dry ingredients separately and then combine with your butter mixture until incorporated.  I apologize that I don't know exactly how much cinnamon and sugar I used for the next step, but I mixed up some cinnamon and sugar in a bowl and then as I scooped out balls of cookie dough, I rolled them in the cinnamon and sugar before placing them on the cookie sheets to bake.  Baked the cookies at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes (oven times may vary.)

And these are a couple of my buckets all done up-- I made the cards which state what's inside along with "Merry Christmas."  The buckets I bought from the Target dollar spot in September.  They had an assortment of colors at the time, but as soon as I saw the red and green, I had to scoop them up for this.  (Thinking ahead really pays off!)  They're off to the guys on Daniel's squad at work and some of our close friends to enjoy.  Do you have any Holiday recipes to share? I'm always up for trying some new stuff!

Oh and PS, we're in the single digits now!