celebrating the holidays ... by torturing the children and then feeding them too much chocolate ....

hooray for christmas time .... 

first ... i'll just confess right up front .... our holiday tradition begins with just a little bit of torture .... we exchange gifts on christmas eve ..... so the kids all make or buy gifts for each other and we get stuff for them, and they make or buy for us .... and the grands' gifts ... and sundry others .... and they all get put under the tree (or near the tree if they are large!) as soon as they are ready .... hence, the torture .... 

i put out these three large heavy packages out on friday ... without gift cards .... they are FROM me ... but no one knows who they are for ..... three boxes, three kids, duh, they are for us ... no, if they were just for us, they'd have tags on them .... i claimed they were not for them .... at least not all of them ... naughty nice list? ... yup, i'm at the top of one of them .... when mr.e.beck.artist got home, he was quickly taken to see them ... they better not be for me! .... they might be cause they don't say they are for us .... we don't know who they are for!! .... and he looked at me ... and said ... they better not be for me ....nothing like giving a little christmas-giving-reciprocity-anxiety ..... insert a wicked cackle here .....

and then today .... i got the rest of a gift in the mail ... so i could wrap it ..... and this is what it looks like .... 

it does have a tag on it ... to girl.beck.artist from mommy and daddy .... it is tall and lovely and elegant .... and, as of now, there is no corresponding lovely gift under the tree for the two other children ..... there's always one good gift ... or, like this, a collection ... as well as pjs and books and ordinary gifty things that you appreciate but that don't necessarily make you lose sleep at night in the days leading up to christmas ..... refer back to blog post title .. torture ... uh huh ... and then you cross your fingers that santa will bring you something more than a lump of coal ... or socks ... santa always brings us socks .... he used to bring underwear, when they wore cute underwear ... only one still has cute underwear .... maybe that's how you know you're grown up .... no more days of the week underwear or dora or power rangers .... i digress ...... 

 .....so then .... like they aren't all amped up enough with the impending christmas joys, then you fill them with chocolate .....

here's and easy peasy lemon squeezy recipe for you ... the kids can do it without my help at all .... shae, do you read my blog? i think i got this idea from you ..... 

1. preheat oven to 250 ... 

2. put pretzels out on a tray ... we did two trays full (trayfuls?)

3. put a chocolate kiss on each pretzel .... get your brother and sister to help you unwrap them ... wonder why they don't sell kisses unwrapped for just this sort of thing ... 

4.  put in oven ... set timer for three minutes .... 

5. to see if they are ready, open oven, try to squash a kiss down with a pretzel .... full squishiness is ready ... hard bottom and you need to bake another minute or two .... (don't, like i did the first time, wait for the kiss to melt and lose form ... won't happen ... they are well and thoroughly burned before they lose shape)

6. when the kisses are adequately squishy, pull them out of the oven and plop another pretzel on each one to make a glorious chocolate pretzel sandwich 

7. let cool .... or eat as many as you can before you get caught ... and then pack them up in a tin to enjoy over the holidays ....

i could be a recipe writer huh?  is there such a thing as editorialized recipes? 

what are your noteworthy holiday traditions?