O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...sing along everybody!

"O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree; you are not at my house. O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree; I didn't put you up. I've been too busy doing stuff, and I won't be here anyways, SO Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, you're staying in your box."

Thank you, thank you, I know, I am quite talented. This is a picture of my tree from last year. It would look the same if I put it up this year so I think it counts. But seriously, I didn't get out any of my decorations this year. I figured it was counter-productive since I was packing things into boxes. And since Josh and I are spending Christmas away from our home, what is the point? Surprisingly, it doesn't bother me. It's actually kind of nice not having to worry about Brutus knocking it over.

However, in the spirit of Christmas, I have been busy making lots of treats; because that makes Christmas time delicious. Here are a couple of my favorite "make-to-give-away-to-friends, neighbors, and-old-people-in-the-ward treats" recipes.

Pumpkin Bread

Here's a LINK to recipe. I make this into those little mini loaves, and I get six per recipe and I bake them for about 65 minutes.

AND

Sweet Chex Mix (No picture. Sad.)

(The secret to this one is the sugar with butter and more sugar (in the form of Karo syrup) and butter flavoring. YUM!)

1 cup sugar
1 cup light corn syrup

3/4 cup butter

dash of butter flavoring

1/8 tsp. baking soda (pinch)

18 cups cereal (6 cups each: Corn Chex, Rice Chex, and Golden Grahams)*

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Measure out cereal into a large bowl. Melt butter, sugar and corn syrup in saucepan over high heat, stirring constantly. Bring to a rolling boil. Remove from heat and promptly add butter flavor and baking soda and stir. Pour over cereal mixture and stir to coat evenly. Pour onto greased cookie sheet and bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and dump mix onto wax paper to cool. Store in ziploc bags.

*This year I used Wheat Chex because it came in the combo box I bought at Costco, so I did 5 cups of Golden Grahams, and 4 1/3 cups of the three Chex cereals. Josh thinks I should just leave out the Chex and do it all with Golden Grahams.

You should really try them. Go on, start making them. Hey, are you still reading this?

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM JOSH AND NICOLA!