THANKSGIVING and CANDY MAKING

It's a tradition in my family that the day after Thanksgiving is 'Candy Making Day'. As far back as I can remember we did this. Both of my parents came from large families so there were lots of cousins, aunts, and uncles.  Most lived close together so the day of candy making was usually well attended. We were even featured in the Toledo Blade one year, when I sent a letter to the food editor telling her about our fun tradition of making candy all day on the Friday following Thanksgiving day.

We usually ended up with over 100 pounds of candy, each family taking home samples of each kind made. They included almond roca, buckeyes, peanut sticks, peanut brittle, white chocolate crunch delight, over 6 flavors of hard candy each a different color, caramels, church windows, peanut butter and chocolate fudge, and some I may be forgetting! For the kids, it was usually just a day for playing together, but as we got a little older we would be delegated to wrapping caramels in wax paper or rolling hard candy in powdered sugar to prevent sticking. 

For my family, most of this candy was given away as gifts at Christmas in special candy boxes or fruit baskets. Another tradition in our family would be to go out Christmas caroling the week of Christmas. We would put together beautiful gift basket with fruit and candies to give to those we sang to.  It was so much fun!

Today as we made candy, we had fun remembering those times. Traditions are such an important family activity, and we really are never too old to establish new traditions! These are some of the special times that bond our families together for life. I hope you enjoy some of the pictures of our Thanksgiving day and Candy making day.

The candies we made today were- white chocolate crunch delight, peanut brittle, chocolate covered peanut sticks, almond roca,and buckeyes and one of our favorites-ritz crackers sandwiched with marshmallow creme and peanut butter then covered in chocolate. I made a large batch of cut out cookies earlier in the week and the granddaughters all worked together and decorated the cookies. We were all able to take home a nice variety of all we made. I'll most likely make more as the days and weeks go by but this day spent with family is always a great start to our holiday baking!