Christmas Candy

Yesterday was candy day. A tradition of My mother, Brian & I. It's been growing every year. The original idea was lightbulb lollipops. Brian would make the lollipops, wrap them in different colour foil & stick them in a little Styrofoam tree that he keeps on his desk at work. Lights on the tree . . . that you can eat . . .

So, when you melt the chocolate for the lollipops, you usually have some left over . . . & so you make some other miscellaneous candies . . . well . . . it's grown a little & while the day still revolves around the stages of the lollipop batches, the other inventory has grown considerably.

So, here's MY first batch of lollipops, even though Brian was making them from the beginning of the operation - but his "batch" is five . . . mine is a dozen. He has a different mold . . . And there I sit with mass amounts of red ornaments, peanut clusters, dark chocolate marshmallow clusters, & everyone's favourite (though I don't know why, they're my least favourite) Peanut butter flavoured chocolate covered marshmallow clusters.

And my first batch of lollipops is solid . . . I usually use dark chocolate, but I think I used milk chocolate this year . . . if I did, it was purely because it was convenient . . . probably already melted or something. The other batch (which is green instead of red) is filled with caramel. Yummm :)
This is the really annoying part of the evening. Wrapping. We take those flimsy little squares of coloured foil & wrap them around the candies that aren't in cups. Those are the light bulbs & what we've got here . . . gold nuggets & . . . red . . . um . . . nuggets. The gold is almond clusters in dark chocolate & the red is almond clusters in milk chocolate. Brian's actually working . . . it looks like I'm either done or procrastinating by adjusting cups . . . but I think I'm done.
Okay. This just had to happen. my mother is hanging around with a camera - so there had to be a pose. I was headed to go get lollipops out of the freezer & she goes, "go snuggle" so we got a cute little picture of Brian & I - exhausted as hell & trying not to show it.
We took a break & watched the Muppets Christmas Carol - another part of the tradition. And it has almost become part of the tradition that I look up for my favourite bits, but mainly sit & detail ornaments & wrap lightbulbs on Brian's sword case/coffee table.
Candy candy candy candy candy candy candy candycandycandycandy CANDYCANDCANDY!!!!
I love this shot . . . look at that. Candy as far as the eye can see . . . Those two enormous creatures on the white tray are yet another part of the tradition. Turtles are just too hard to make - for other people . . . so we make them just for the three of us. Those are mine & my mother's. They are special turtles though . . . instead of just milk chocolate, peanuts, & caramel, there are layers . . . the first is milk chocolate, then the peanuts & caramel, then white chocolate, topped with a sprinkle of Cocoa Krispies. I've still got some work to do today, but I've already got three boxes ready to go out to friends & family.