Candy Time!

Every year during the month of December, we make candy. It's a tradition my husband's family had, that we picked up after we were married. I was more than happy to go with it, I'd never really made candy before. I mean, my mom had made it, but it wasn't a big family thing. I think she enjoyed making it while we were at school so it was less chaos. I say this from experience.

Let me tell you what I mean. We have a small kitchen -- it's the bane of our lives, but we can't afford to do anything about it yet. It's the size of a hallway with the sink on one side and the stove on the other. Barely enough room for two people, and we usually get in each other's way. Picture three cooks in the kitchen (making toffee and peanut brittle) four at the table (which is right next to the hallway kitchen area) making dipped pretzels and two little ones running through everything wanting to help but driving everyone crazy, and one lone grandpa avoiding the whole thing by reading the newspaper in the other room. Add to that, Christmas music, everyone talking, (or shouting, if you have teenagers) and you get the general idea.



One of the cooks was my youngest daughter, the other two were hubby and his mom. While hubby was preparing stuff, grandma was teaching daughter how she does candy...but she hasn't done this by herself in a few years, so I'm not sure what she was telling her...grin. I'm safe in saying this, she doesn't read my blog!

The other teenagers and oldest daughters were helping do the pretzels, which was something my one daughters 'fiance's' aunt showed them how to make -- it was a good thing we didn't care what they looked like, I'm sure they had fun. There were some stressful times...they put one batch of pretzels to cool ontop of the other batch...grin, but it was regular chaos and fun to be had by all. I was ready to take a vacation, and my hubby reminded me that soon enough it was going to be real quiet in our house and we would miss this.

I'm thinking...not if we invite them over to make candy every year...

Anyway, fun times, fun traditions, and I can't believe Christmas is a week from today and I haven't really done ANY shopping! ARGH...

If you see a frantic woman running around this afternoon with two young women in tow shouting that they've still got four more stores to go, that will be me. Grin. Have a good one!