Peanut butter, chocolate, pretzels, and loads of powdered sugar… better end the year off with a good old bowl of peppermint muddy buddies!

The month of December has gone by in a blink of an eye and my heart was definitely not prepared for Christmas as it rolled right past before my eyes. Although I’ve been blessed with a very early start of Christmas break, all the meet-ups, to-do lists, work, and errands packed my schedule and there was barely any true “free time” for myself to unwind for the holidays… I guess that it’s true when people say that the holidays can be one of the most stressful times of the year. But I can’t complain because it’s the type of stress where I still look forward to all the tasks I need to face for the day, and it gives me a sense of accomplishment and a sense of productivity when the day is done.

I should probably start to re-establish my bedtime before the new semester begins in a few days cause my “sleep by 11pm” guideline I’ve set for myself has been neglected real badly during the holidays. I mean, you can’t have a holiday without needing a holiday to recover after your holiday right? I’ll just recover when school begins (;

Eating copious amounts of Muddy Buddies over the holidays started only last year when Leung and our dear friend Jaimie came over to my house to build a gingerbread house together. It was after Christmas, and the gingerbread village kit was on clearance at Superstore for $3 so how could we resist such a fun activity on a snowy winter’s day? I remember Leung texting me saying “Do we each want a gingerbread house, or do we wan to build a village together?”. The latter option is definitely a whole lot more fun. Gingerbread villages/houses are totally valid after Christmas too!

We couldn’t spend an afternoon building houses (it’s some hard work!) without some sweets to fuel us (or make us super giggly and hyper) along the way, so I decided to make a giant batch of muddy buddies. It’s pretty much cereal covered with a ton of peanut butter and chocolate laden with powdered sugar… definitely our kind of Christmas treat. I even made a double batch that day and we literally had two large mixing bowls full of muddy buddies for three people in one afternoon. Needless to say, I was bouncing off the walls that day. We went tobogganing before building our village, so it was a good thing we used a bit of our energy before we dumped all that sugar into our bodies.

Now when I think about Muddy Buddies, it just brings me back to the moments of that day. I think we’ve established a nice little tradition here with our group of friends; that there’ll always be a big ol’ bowl of muddy buddies on the table at our Christmas reunion, so everyone can be bouncing off the walls by the end of the night. Others like to get drunk off wine, and we like to get high on sugar. Classy, I know. The best kind of high if you ask me: high on laughter, friends, dessert, and life!

New Years eve is tomorrow, so if you’re having a family and friend gathering, don’t forget a bowl of muddy buddies on the table! It’s so easy to make and so fun to eat throughout the night! Our bowl is already ready in the kitchen for our New Year’s Eve gathering tomorrow. Can’t wait to end the year with muddy buddies, laughter, smiles, and the dearest people by my side.