Relieved!

For once, I'm so glad it's Monday! I knew last week that I had enough to do to keep me busy at least through the weekend, and I am finally done!

First, we finished all the candy! I'm running so late this year - I had wanted to share the more difficult recipes with you all, but ran out of time. I hope that next year, I will be a little better prepared (I say that every year!).

These are spiced nuts, and Jeff's Capuccino Caramels. The caramels are probably the most work of all the candy we make, but they are so worth it! I'll share the easy recipe for the nuts at the end of this post - they take about 5 minutes to make and are so good! The "spice" is sweet, not savory.

I also finished up all the gifts I was making! I made 16 Coloring and Sketch Wallets for our younger nieces and nephews, and a few kids of some good friends.

For our teen nieces, and the girls at Jeff's office, I made these little snap wallet and tissue holder sets. I made several in each fabric combination, but couldn't quite get them to stack as nicely as the above coloring/sketch wallets, so just took a picture of one each.

Friday and Saturday, I packaged and mailed 13 boxes! That in itself is so time consuming - making sure I had the right gifts in each box, printing address labels, taping. And, even as careful as I was trying to be, I did forget to put one thing in a box! UGH. I thought my mailman would have a fit, but instead, he was so thankful for the business. I guess they do worry about all the alternative ways to ship these days!

We've been so busy that Jeff and I didn't put a tree up until yesterday! It's a small one though - so the work was minimum. I kept the ornaments to a minimum too - some faux stained glass pieces that the boys and I made when they were small, and some paper photo ornaments they made in school a long, long time ago. I'm surprised they have survived over so many years!

Here's the recipe for the nuts! Enjoy!

Spiced Nuts

Ingredients:

1 1/2 c. sugar

1 t. salt

1/2 t. cinnamon

1 T. vanilla

6 T. water

5 c. mixed nuts

Lightly grease a large cookie sheet.

Put nuts in a large bowl, set aside.

In a large saucepan, combine all ingredients except nuts. Stir constantly until mixture comes to a full boil. Boil for 4 minutes. Immediately pour over nuts and mix until coated (work quickly!). Spread on prepared cookie sheet, and let cool for several hours. The coating will be glossy and very sticky, then while cooling will harden and become sugary. Break apart, and store in an airtight container.