Christmas Traditions - Making Peanut Brittle for the Neighbors

The Holly Bloggy Christmas Bash ends up today with a "Christmas Traditions & Memories" link up, with Tidy Mom.

We have a lot of traditions at Christmas, mainly because any activity we happen to do one year, the children automatically assume we'll do every year after that. They are very big on tradition!

I have mixed feelings about most them (the traditions, not the children!). I love the continuity, and feeling of security they bring to life. I love how they join us together as a family. But, being a bit of a flibbertigibbet myself, I find the discipline involved in carrying them out, year after year, more than a little taxing.

Case in point, is one of my favorite, but newer, traditions - having the children deliver plates of homemade goodies to the neighbors. We started it a few years back, when our street, which is also newer, was finally completed, and entirely occupied. It was our way of welcoming the new neighbors, and introducing ourselves to the ones who had moved in a little ahead of us. It was also an opportunity to get the children involved in an act of giving.

The first year we gave out plates of gingerbread men. The next year, it was an assortment of goodies, including my family's old stand-by, Betty Crocker peanut brittle. One of the older women (a little younger than my mother, but close enough to be surrogate), asked for the recipe. I gave it to her, but admitted, that for every good batch, I usually have at least two that fail, but that for some reason, my mother can always manage to make it work, every time. She grinned a conspiratorial grin, and assured me her dearly missed mother had been that way too.

Of course, after that, the peanut brittle became part of the tradition, failed batches, and all.

It's great to be a homeschooler.