Christmas Caroling and Treats!

The Happy Hubby is the worship pastor at our church. For the last 5 years, he has arranged for a night of Christmas caroling in late December!

It is one of my most favorite nights of the whole year!

A gal in our church owns an RV, so we all pile in it and drive around visiting various homes of elderly members from our church. We sing carols on their front doorstep and then give them some Christmas treats.

Last year, the Happy Buddy was about 6 months old and he had the best time joining in the festivities! I was so thrilled that he got to witness the magic of bringing Christmas Worship to someone’s door. Everyone we sang to was so blessed.

One home in particular, I will never forget. A mom answered the door with her two little girls. We joyously sang songs of our Savior’s birth to that sweet family. With each song we sang, tears poured from the mother’s eyes, for she had been going through a difficult season. As it turned out, one of her daughters had been experiencing some serious health complications and there were many speculations about her future looking dim.

After we sang, a friend and I joined hands with this woman and prayed for her. We prayed for her daughter’s healing and for them to experience a miracle – just like the One God gave us on Christmas Eve.

I could tell that our visit encouraged her mommy heart tremendously. And today, I am happy to report, that her daughter is thriving! Praise God!

Oh, the joys of sharing His love with others! Especially through music!

And I know the recipients enjoyed us sharing some pretty delicious treats, too. There’s nothing like a good plate of chocolate to point a heart toward heaven! Haha! 🙂

So I thought I would share with you the two treats we bagged up for our visits this year!

Holiday Fudge Bars

I am not even kidding when I say that as I am writing this, I literally have a stomach ache from eating too many of these Fudg-y Bars of Goodness! The Happy Hubby looked over at me as I was polishing it off and said, “Did you enjoy your brownie?” And I was like, “Um – brown-IES! They were awesome!”

Ingredients –

2 cups quick-cooking oats
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups M&M’s
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk

Directions –

Combine first 6 ingredients, stirring well.
Add butter and stir until crumbly.
Reserve 1 1/2 cups crumb mixture; press remaining crumb mixture into a lightly greased 9×13 pan.
Bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Cool on wire rack.
Reduce oven temperature to 350.
Place 1 cup M&M’s in bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir.
Microwave for 30 more seconds. Mash M&M’s with back of spoon.
Stir in condensed milk and spread over crust.
Combine remaining crumb mixture and M&M’s. Sprinkle evenly over chocolate mixture and press lightly.
Bake at 350 for 25-28 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
Eat so many that your tummy hurts!

Aren't these just adorable?

Holiday Pretzel Treats

Directions –

Heat oven to 170.
Set a number of bite-size, waffle-shaped pretzels in a single layer on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
Top each pretzel with an unwrapped Hershey’s Kiss or Hug (unwrapping all of those Hugs and Kisses is a serious labor-of-love!).
Bake for 4-5 minutes (the white chocolate will melt more quickly), until chocolates feel soft.
Remove cookie sheet from oven and quickly press M&M’s candy into the center of each Kiss. Allow treats to cool for 2 minutes, then place in the refrigerator to set – about 10 minutes.
Place handfuls of treats in treat bags and give away!

I cut squares of the Holiday Fudge Bars and placed 4-5 Pretzel Treats in a cute bag. Then I attached this wonderful FREE Printable M&M Nativity Legend Tag (because both treats use M&M’s) that I found over at this amazing blog called My Computer Is My Canvas. I hope they loved their treats as much as I loved making them!

What was left got set out for the hungry carolers when we returned from our outing!