Merry Christmas from JuJu the cuddler and me! It’s been a fantastic couple of days spent with family and friends while eating the most delicious foods, giving and receiving gifts, and spending time with loved ones. Hopefully you had a wonderful day as well, especially if you celebrate Christmas.

JuJu decided to pose for a Christmas card with her fancy new toy. Adorable, right?

Christmas Treats

As I’m writing this I realize I’m so full from Christmas dinner and all the wonderful snacks we’ve had all day long. It’s been a wonderful couple of days of food!

I did end up making some of my favorite Christmas treats this year. I ran out of time in my planning stage so I ended up making super fast treats: puppy chow and pretzel hugs!

It was my first time making puppy chow so it took a try or two before I got the knack of melting the sauce to the right consistency. At the end of the cooking session I finally started to get it right and the end result turned out tasty and fun. Throwing in some Christmas M&Ms made it look pretty festive!

It was also my first time making Christmas pretzel hugs with Hershey’s kisses. Since I went to the store late in the week they were out of the pretzels I wanted so I used butter snaps for these. They were a huge hit and went faster than I expected. A lot of people  had never had them before.

Since we did a potluck style family event for Christmas this year there were a ton of other delicious items. I’m pretty sure calories don’t count on Christmas so I enjoyed everything and even have leftovers!

Christmas Gifts

This year I purchased a lot of gifts but the best gifts I gave were handmade. Since I gave multiple people coffee mugs this year, I decided to also make coasters for people as an additional gift.

This is the cat coaster set I made for someone who loves cats. She has cat themed everything so it seemed like an appropriate gift. I made sure to personalize the coaster sets to each person using pets or pictures of family. I made four coaster sets for people and because they were personalized they got a great reaction (3 people happy cried).

Making these coasters was one of my favorite experiences this Christmas. I love buying presents for people because it’s incredibly fun to get something I think they will enjoy. But it is even more fun to make them something they will like and use. Making things and being crafty is one of my favorite hobbies so hopefully I can do that more in the new year. I’d love to share more tutorials and projects I’m working on!

I also got a lot of great gifts this year. It was one of those years when every gift was perfectly practical or incredibly fun or cute. I wore half my presents immediately and can’t wait to use the rest (and write reviews for some of them!)

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”

I’m ending my night hanging out with JuJu and drinking a wonderful glass of refreshing water. After all the treats from the past two days, I’m definitely ready for water and simplicity! I loved Christmas this year but I’m incredibly ready for the new year!