Homemade Christmas Gifts

Its a bit of a late post for Christmas, but I wanted to note what I make as Christmas gifts over the years for everyone, so I can keep track, and if I run out of ideas, I will reuse the idea that is from many years ago!
I have a lot of people in my family, and Aleksy has many in his, so we find it financially affordable, yet thoughtful to make our gifts for our favorite people each year. Two years ago we did homemade Baileys, last year we did themed gift baskets.... and this year:

Homemade Chai Tea jars:

We bought the jars and tea diffusers from Ikea, the ribbon and decorations from the Dollar store, and made the tea from spices and loose tea purchased from the bulk store.

So in this concoction is loose leaf black tea, cinnamon sticks, black and red peppercorns, fennel seeds, cloves, cardamom, candied ginger, and I added a bit star anise...

To have the spices release their scents, I toasted them all in the oven for about 10 minutes (minus the candied ginger)... then the tea was ready to be placed into jars!

So it was a pretty simple recipe, and very delicious...

Only one thing....

It took hours to cut the cardamom seeds to get to the spice that is within the shell! And that is about 3 hours with 2 of us both splitting the pods...
But those little tiny black balls that are in the cardamom pod are very aromatic and contributed to the teas amazing smell!












Also, as usual I did some Christmas baking to provide to family in tins, and to bring to holiday gatherings on platters. I did all my baking in one day this year due to limited baking time. We moved into our house on December 8th, and the following week we had a lot of plans with people coming over to see the new house so I wasn't able t bake until the 23rd. And I actually baked from 10am to 1am!

What was in the line-up this year?

The traditional Christmas sugar cookies with sprinkles (a family tradition that I can't go a year without!), ginger snaps (by popular request), shortbread cookies, chocolate covered peanut butter balls (my favorite), chocolate peanut butter crisp bars, krispie peanut butter balls, (sensing a peanut butter trend? We love our peanut butter!) candy cane brownies, and my first time trying nanaimo bars (which turned out fantastic and minty! the secret to the filling is peppermint extra and vanilla pudding)... My freezer is now empty with all the leftover going promptly into my tummy.... Mmmmm baked goods.... my favorite evening snack!