The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

"It's that time, Christmas time is here, everybody knows there's not a better time of year," (Weill). We all gather around, hot chocolate in hand, ready to sit and watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation together. My sister and I have so many little Christmas traditions together, making gingerbread houses, watching every Christmas movie imaginable, and of course baking.

For us, baking at Christmas time is a multiple day event, baking fudge, peppermint bark, cookies, chocolate cornflakes, cupcakes, and more! Each year though, at the beginning of December, my sister and I would volunteer at our Church's Christmas Bazaar, often working the bake sale. One year however, our schedules did not allow us to volunteer our time, so rather we decided to bake something to donate to the sale.

Wanting to make something really nice, I decided to make a chocolate truffle wreath. I truly had no idea what I had just signed myself up for. I had never made truffles before and it was definitely more involved than I had initially thought. I had to crush Oreo cookies using the food processor, mix it together with cream cheese, which I found out is a lot harder than it sounds, and more. Once the truffles themselves were made, I thought the hard part was behind me, turns out the hard part was just beginning.

The next step was to cover the truffles in baking chocolate. I first melted down the green baking chocolate, which was easy enough, but covering the truffles was the hard part. I dipped the first one in, only to have it come out no longer in the shape of a ball. The next was not much better, refusing to be completely covered in chocolate. My frustration quickly rose. I only had a few hours before I was going to have to take this wreath to the church. Failure was not an option at this point.

After many trial and errors, I finally figured out a way to dip the truffles into the chocolate while maintaining their shape relatively well. I quickly finished dipping the rest and set them out to dry. Once they were all dry, it was time to assemble the wreath, a whole new challenge. I began placing the truffles into a circle, but how was I supposed to "glue" them down? I finally figured out that melting more baking chocolate could be used to hold the truffles together, while still being the same color as the truffles themselves.

With each added truffle, it began to take on more of the shape of a wreath. By the time I placed the last one on it looked like a bare wreath. But, how was I going to make it look like an actual wreath? I found little red candies that could help it look more like a wreath, but the selling point was the little bow I found. I carefully placed the bow onto the wreath, making sure it was centered and straight. At this point I had already worked so hard on this wreath, I wasn't going to let a crooked bow ruin it for me now.

Once the bow was on, the wreath was complete. After hours of laboring over the placement of each truffle was complete. It had seemed so easy, I didn't know how it ended up to be so complicated, but I actually didn't mind. I knew it was for a good cause, and it was my favorite time of year, nothing could make me mad. I didn't even mind at that point that I couldn't eat any of it. I simply had one thing to say after completing the wreath; I am never making truffles again.

Thankful for Cookies

Now that Halloween is over, Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Time spent with friends and family around the table, thankful for everything life has to offer, and of course the delicious food. Each Thanksgiving in my family is different, some years going to Georgia to see family, other years going to neighbor's houses, and of course some years just staying home.

One thing that never seems to change is how people look forward to my peanut butter blossom cookies. I make them every year no matter where we end up. Last Thanksgiving, my family flew down to Georgia to visit our grandparents and cousins. We stayed at my Aunt's house who was hosting the dinner, and so we helped out making dinner. My mom helped with the turkey, my sister helped with the potatoes, and I was in charge of baking.

My Aunt had asked me to make my peanut butter blossom cookies because they were her favorite. The last time she had been at my house I made them for her. I remember she had helped my unwrap all of the Hershey kisses for each individual cookie. It had taken us much longer than it should have because we were having so much fun doing something together. I don't see my Aunt that often, usually once maybe twice in a year, so this was something special.

The night before Thanksgiving, after we had finished dinner, I got started in the kitchen, whipping up the eggs, adding in the peanut butter, and rolling them into balls before putting them in the oven. As we waited for them took bake up, we moved to the dining room to begin setting the table, with an orange tablecloth and china plates.

When the timer went off, just like last time my Aunt helped me unwrap all of the Hershey kisses I would need for the cookies. We took our time pressing each one into the center of the warm cookies. For a few of the cookies the Hershey kiss melted a little too much, it couldn't be put on display on the Thanksgiving table, so of course it had to be eaten.

Even though the cookies were meant for the next day, we all had to try one. How can you bake cookies and then not eat any? It's practically impossible, especially when it's peanut butter and chocolate. Of course we had other things to bake for Thanksgiving dinner, but we ended up only baking the peanut butter blossoms that night. It caused for a very early morning for all of use to make the pies and other desserts as well as the stuffing and cook the turkey itself.

This year my family won't be making it down to Georgia, rather it's one of those Thanksgivings where we stay home and cook all of the food ourselves, still together, just less people. And of course, the peanut butter blossom cookies will still be made. Who knew that a recipe off the back of a Hershey's kiss package could provide more than just good cookies, but countless family memories.