6 cups popped corn
1 cup roasted and unsalted peanuts
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup molasses
1/4 cup sugar
Pour popcorn and peanuts into a large pan. Melt butter in a saucepan, then add the molasses and sugar, blending the ingredients together. Heat to the soft-crack stage at 290 degrees F. Pour the liquid candy over the mixed popcorn and peanuts, stirring the mixture with a wooden spoon to make sure the popcorn and peanuts are evenly coated with candy. Lay on wax paper to dry. Makes six cups.
What better way to keep kids feeling jolly than to encourage them to play with their food — which is the whole point of our Snack-tivity Station. To help your guests create these festive Ice-cream-cone Trees, stock the station with paper plates, sugar cones, sugar cookies (your own or store-bought), store-bought icing (one batch of white, one batch tinted with green food coloring), shredded coconut, sprinkles, lollipops, and a selection of bite-size candies. To make a tree, spread a cone with green icing; spoon a dollop of white icing onto a sugar cookie, then gently push the cone into the icing. Top the icing with shredded coconut snow. Decorate the tree with sprinkles and candy ornaments, and crown with a lollipop star (nibble a hole in the cone for the stem). Provide flat-bottomed brown bags so kids can take home their trees (or tree pieces!).
Forget the front door. These bite-size wreaths — whimsical enough to appeal to the smallest (and finickiest) guests — are meant to deck your plate (although they’re unlikely to stay there for very long). To make them, spread mini bagel halves with cream cheese (plain or tinted green with herbs or food coloring), then sprinkle on red, yellow, and green bell-pepper confetti.
The pine in this case is pineapple, and laden with colorful fruit kabob branches, it’s one holiday centerpiece almost too good to eat. To assemble one, cut off the top and about 1 inch of the bottom (for stability) of a large pineapple. On 4 to 5 inch bamboo skewers (you’ll need about 50), thread 3 to 5 pieces of assorted fresh fruits — melon chunks, grapes, strawberries, and the like — leaving an inch or so of skewer to stick into the pineapple; if your skewers are too long, you can easily cut them to size with the cutting blades of a pair of pliers. As you finish each skewer, insert it at a slight downward angle into the pineapple, starting at the bottom. Top with a skewered slice of star fruit or a star carved from the extra pineapple. Once the branches are eaten, don’t forget to slice up the tree trunk!
Look-alike plastic cups have a way of losing themselves in a crowd. To save guests the bother of cup hunting (and avoid waste in the bargain), add large starburst stickers to each cup, along with smaller stars or other stickers for decoration. Next to an assortment of markers, set up a placard directing guests to sign and retain the cup of their choice.
Country & Victorian Times 