Everyone likes to get gifts, and if you say you don’t than you are lying.  We may not all like to sit there and open presents in front a crowd (I know that I certainly do not), but receiving something in general is a different story.  One thing that can be awkward about being on the receiving end is when someone has gotten you something you really aren’t interested in.  Of course we must still express gratitude, and it’s a good idea to dig down even deeper and actually feel thankfulness, but some five dollar hand lotion from Wal-Mart is hard to be truly thankful for.  You know something that anyone can be thankful for at any time?

Homemade chocolate.  Without a doubt.  Here are couple different easy chocolates that you can make in a few steps:

[First of all, make sure that you don’t forget the candy boxes!  All that hard work will lose a lot of its impact if the presentation is just a Ziploc babe.  Don’t worry, you can find candy boxes for pretty cheap at a craft store.]

Homemade Butterfinger Bites: melt one pound of candy corn in the microwave, starting with one minute and then stirring it every fifteen seconds until is melted through.  Add a sixteen ounce jar of creamy peanut butter and mix well.  Spread this mixture into a 9X9 pan lined with wax paper.  Put this in the fridge and let it cool completely.  Cut into bite-size squares.  To melt the chocolate I put a glass mixing bowl over a saucepan with some water in the bottom.  As the water begins to boil it heats the glass bowl, which allows the chocolate to melt evenly and slowly.  So once you’ve melted sixteen ounces of chocolate dip the little squares into it and lay them on waxed paper to harden.  Ah-mazing!

I will go over some other recipes in the second part of this post.  While you are waiting for your candies to set, go ahead and get your candy boxes ready.  Once the candy is ready to be packaged its good to just get it boxed up so that nothing unfortunate winds up happening.  But be careful, don’t go to package it too soon or you will ruin the candy!  Then stack the freshly loaded candy boxes in another, bigger box until you are ready to hand them out.  Or, if you’ve gotten good enough, sell them (wink wink).