The Wonderful Topic of Holidays and Fudge

Well with the holidays literally right around the corner, it's about time to get our baking skills out of the old cookbook. Unlike my older sister, my baking skills don't come naturally, they come from cookbooks and the great land of Pinterest.

However! I am excited (okay, ecstatic) to say that I have a lovely recipe for chocolate peanut butter fudge that I practically came up with on my own. My proportions simply stemming from multiple fudge recipes. Can I call it my own? I think so.

Here's what you will need:

• 4 and 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
• 1/3 of a cup of milk
• 1/2 a tablespoon of salt
• 1/3 of a cup of natural peanut butter (natural is optional)
• 1/4 of a cup of butter
• 3/4 of a cup of cocoa or carob power (I used carob - tastes great, but again, carob is optional)
• 1/2 a tablespoon of vanilla extract

Now that you have your ingredients, here's what you do with them:

1. Melt your butter in a sauce pan. Once completely melted, mix in milk and vanilla extract.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the powdered sugar, salt, and cocoa or carob powder.
3. Sift the mixture of powdered sugar, salt, and cocoa or carob powder.
4. Gradually add the sugar mixture into your butter mixture, mixing well.
5. Once this is completed, stir in peanut butter. If the mixture is too powdery and beginning to separate, add milk by the tablespoon until the correct texture is made.
6. Pour fudge into a container of your choice (the length and width effect the size of your fudge).
7. Cool fudge in fridge for at least 2 hours, longer if necessary. 

Easy peasy recipe, right? And trust me, it is delicious.

Now let's move on to your next subject: holidays. What is a holiday? Well by definition a holiday is..

"A day of festivity or recreation when no work is done."

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Thanksgiving a lot of work? Preparing for this holiday is quite exhausting and today more than ever, a lot of hard work goes into preparing a Thanksgiving feast and cleaning up after all those Thanksgiving beasts. Yeah, that's right. Those people that dig into the delicious food before it has been served - they're Thanksgiving beasts.

And then you have the shopping beasts. Those people who insist of staying out in the freezing cold weather just for a good deal on something. Their Black Friday actually starts the day before Black Friday - on the day that is supposed to be set aside for giving thanks to everything that we take advantage of throughout the year. Instead of doing just that, they take advantage of the good deals that are going on.

I am definitely not saying that Black Friday shopping is wrong - I go shopping on Black Friday. I just believe that maybe, instead of overlapping Christmas and Thanksgiving by waiting until Christmas to be thankful, everyone could be a little more thankful on Thanksgiving and leave Christmas to celebrate it's own purpose, the birth of our savior. And leave Black Friday for shopping. 

Holidays aren't for working out your brain thinking about gifts or food or shopping, they're about celebrating what God has done for us in a festive manner and celebrating it with the people that we love most. So what are you thankful for? What are you especially thankful for this year?

I'm thankful for everything that God has done for us in this year. In this lifetime. Even though sometimes it doesn't seem like He has done much,  I just remember that He is doing things in my life even when I don't notice it. Moving here was a blessing, not a curse, even if I don't know it yet. God provides the clothes on my body, the food on my family's table, and the very computer that I'm writing this post on. Although sometimes it seems like my Father or my Mother is providing me with these things, I humble myself and remember that if not for God, they wouldn't have the chance to provide these things. 

So there's my answer. It may be a simple one, a lame one, but there's much more depth to it than a lot of things I could have answered. Well good afternoon everyone, I really hope that you will enjoy this holiday season with your family and stay true to the real meaning of all of these holidays.