And the Stockings Are Hung...

The story, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, is my very favorite Christmas story. So much so that Christmas stockings have always been important to me. When I was a child Santa filled our stockings with fruits and nuts and it was a tradition that we open the stockings before our gifts.

I have carried this tradition of opening the stockings first with my family. Over the years, Santa has added candy and very small, wrapped gifts to our stockings in addition to the fruit and nuts.

Every year I make cookies for Santa, but this year I decided I would also make some homemade candy. I decided to make some Chewy Nut Toffee from Martha Stewart Living magazine December 2001 issue.

You need a 9 x 13-inch jelly roll pan, a candy thermometer, and a heavy-bottom pot to make the toffee in. You have to be patient while making this because there is a lot of stirring involved, but it is a fun candy to make. The difficult part was keeping everyone's hands off it during the 24 hours that it needs to set AND then cutting it. I thought it would be a softer caramel, but it is a thick, hard toffee and so it was not easy to cut and almost impossible to break like you do with toffee made in the large jelly roll pans.

Luckily, one of Santa's elves came to the rescue and finished cutting the toffee for me and I did the wrapping.

I am hoping Santa will like them and share a little bit with us this Christmas.