How I Saved Christmas: Tales of the Half-lit Tree

Pre-lit tree is getting old. Last year pre-lit tree had some dark patches. This year pre-lit tree has a whole dark middle. I tried to fix it. The man of the house tried to fix it. Even armed with fancy short detecting technology pre-lit tree refused to light.

I tried to buy a new pre-lit tree, but the only trees available at such a late date had purple, black, or orange needles. Think Dr. Seuss.

So today as I ate lunch I resigned myself to Christmas with half-lit tree. Once I had resigned myself to the situation, as it generally goes, the creative problem solving side of my brain kicked in. So off I went to the drug store to buy an extension cord & a set of 100 white tree-lights. I got some sets working using the extension cord & the few dark branches that were left got wrapped in the supplement set of lights.

Now half-lit tree looks like THIS!
Isn't that more like it!

White Chocolate Pop Corn

I first had this as a midnight snack at a scrapbook retreat it was so tasty I knew I needed to try making it. You just need a REAL big bowl (or two.) This was a big hit with my family. They are already offering suggestions of all the different things we could mix into it.

1 bag of microwave pop corn with NO BUTTER (air pop corn would work well too)
3 squares of White Bark Coating
colorful candy decorations (optional)

Pop the popping corn. You don't want any butter or oil, it will make the coating get gummy & not set up properly. Transfer the popped corn into a bowl. At this point I transfer the pop corn by hand to a bowl I will mix in. By doing it by hand you can make sure not to get the un-popped kernels at the bottom of the bowl.

In a microwave dish melt the candy bark. I used 3 squares. Melt the candy 30 seconds at a time when it begins to get soft, stir around with a spoon & continue heating 30 seconds at a time until all of the candy bark is melted.

Pour the melted candy onto the popcorn & toss around in the bowl with two spoons. Once you have mixed in the candy bark, you can mix in your colorful candies. I used cupcake sprinkles, you could also use holiday colored M&M's or, hmmm, I wonder how some crushed candy cane pieces would be.

While the mixture is still soft (it doesn't set up too fast so you have time to work with it) use a large ice cream scoop to portion the popped corn into colorful muffin papers.