…bon bons…

It is a family favourite part of the festive season, the weekend before Christmas, we get takeaway, have a picnic in the park, and then head off to do the rounds of town to check out the lights. We often also treat the children to some lollies, but this year, I decided to make them some trail mix. They love our homemade blend, and we don’t do it that often, so it was fun to surprise them with it.

Since I was making the snacks, I figured they needed a cute box to be presented in. I found a bon-bon template in Cricut Design Space that was around the right size, and all I needed was to add a Christmas tree to round out the embellishments. I had all the yardstick and twine on had, so it was an easy little project to cut away on my cricut while I was working on other projects.

The bon bons did have a reasonably large hole that would have let the mix escape, so I ended up packing it in ziplock bags and then putting those inside the bonbons – hence the two black ones bursting at the seams! The fact I ran out of my good Seal+ tape runner and was instead using cheap shop double sided tape didn’t help.

Our trail mix is a simple one: m&ms (christmas coloured, of course), cheerios, sultanas, almonds & cashews, and I normally add banana chips, but to make it a bit more festive, I swapped those for mini-pretzels.

The whole thing was a raging success – it wa stinkin’ hot, and the children had been inside most of the afternoon as I tried to get them done. I told them they were “for our Sunday school friends”, and it was super fun to hear their delight when we got in the car and I handed them out, and they realised the bonbons were indeed for them. It made all the trickiness of getting the cardstock cut and folded worthwhile, in that moment. Coming up with fun ways to help add a little magic to the children’s Christmas season is one of the best parts of this time of year!

Today, we are all piled into our (very small) kitchen, baking up a storm ready to make Christmas hampers for all the rellos. Two batches of sugar cookies are rolled and cut and cycling through the oven. There’s a pot of jars sterilising on the stove ready for us to fill with mulberry jam. I spent the morning culling and uploading photos for brag books. Not getting anywhere fast on my sewing though – maybe this afternoon once the baking is done, I might put a Christmas movie on for the children and get stuck in. FIVE SLEEPS!