Not a Creature Was Stirring....

not even a mouse.

Bahahaha.  Fat chance in this house!

There's always something stirring.  Especially at Christmastime.



So today was our annual invasion of Christmas mice.  This is so much fun!  A little creepy to have row after row of chocolate varmints with evil red eyes.  But it's a tradition around here.

If you want to make yer own rodents, here's how you do it.

Ingredients: (makes about 35 mice)

One bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Bag of Hershey kisses

Two jars of cherries with stems

Sliced almonds

Red food coloring gel

Fudge mint cookies

Instructions:

Melt chocolate chips in a glass bowl in microwave.  Add a splash of oil (I used canola) as you stir the melted chocolate.  This will make it smooth enough for dipping.  Peel your Hershey kisses and put them in a bowl.  Drain the cherries and put them in a bowl or colander.  Empty the almonds into a bowl.  Spread the cookies out on a wax paper lined cookie sheet.  Once you have your assembly line formed, you're ready.

Make sure the three-year-old is happily watching Dora's Christmas party.  Invite the seven-year-old and the five-year-old to help you until they start to get on your nerves or eat all the kisses, in which case send them off to clean up their rooms with the threat that Santa will leave them switches and coal if they don't.

Dip a cherry in the melted chocolate and place on the flat end of a kiss and place it on a cookie.   This is the mouse's body.  I had time to do all the mice before I started on the ears, but you want to get the ears done before the chocolate starts to set.

For the ears, use two sliced almonds.  I like to break them in two, otherwise the ears tend to look like bunny ears.  And that's the wrong holiday, folks.  We'll do those in the spring.  K?

Use the red gel to make the eyes and the nose.

Like so.



We also had some blue and yellow gel.  Catherine decided to give her mouse blue eyes and blonde hair.  She named her Elizabeth.



I wasn't emotionally involved enough to name the other 34 mice.  Besides, they won't be around after tomorrow when Stuart's three-year-old preschool class gets their little hands on them.

Because I am sooooooo not crafty and soooooo not Martha Stewart, but because you might be slightly impressed with the little mouse cuties, I thought I'd also share my holiday table creation I made with a few items from the dollar store and some twigs and berries.



Silver spray-painted walnuts in a bowl.  Some twigs from the yard spray-painted white and some little white paper ball ornaments from the dollar store in a couple of dollar vases filled with white (probably poisonous) berries from a tree in my front yard.

Good things y'all.  Good things.