As you may recall if you read my Three Trees post, we were a little late in getting our tree up this year.  After we realized that our fake tree was not going to cut it (no pun intended!) we were too lazy to take it down until we got the real one put up.  So it sat in the living room empty of ornaments for more than a week.   One night we opened our Christmas story called The Christmas Oranges.  It is about an orphanage that decorated its tree with only oranges that the orphans then got to eat.  I had not yet bought any “Christmas oranges” this year and so that night I bought some and put them on our empty tree for the kids to find the next morning. 

Cade decided to buy his own Christmas presents for his siblings this year and couldn’t wait to wrap them.  Finally, once we got our real tree up and decorated, he wrapped them all.  Here is a bow he made from ribbon.  This kid never stops creating.

Truffle Night

For the last couple years the Wesel women who live here in Boise have gotten together to make the most amazing truffles ever created. We love my brother’s wife, Penny May Wesel,  for many reasons, but one of the biggest is that she brought this recipe to our family.  They made them for their wedding and I have been in love with them ever since.  So we get together to make them and chat at Christmas time.  This year my mom and sisters were able to join us.  It’s been three years now and I’m finally getting the hang of this special recipe.

It all starts with this monster bar of gourmet  chocolate.  It is about 12×18 inches large!

Then you melt the chocolate.

And stir it REALLY hard with ALL your concentration.

After scalding the cream you stir it till it’s cool enough.

Making sure to smile while you are doing it.

Then you mix, pour and chill!

This year’s Truffle Night almost didn’t happen because four days before Christmas every single one of my kids got sick with the flu and my mom, who should have been in this picture, was sick with a stomach bug!  But we quarantined them (the kids, not my mom) in the basement and were able to make our delicious treat. 

Little did we know that was the beginning of the Christmas Flu Epidemic of 2014.  Stay tuned….