Homemade treats are usually an appreciated Christmas gift.

Though sometimes I wonder if teachers look at the homemade goodies their students bring in and cringe a little, wondering if their student washed their hands before they helped or if they’d picked their nose right before they’d packed up the treats. Ewwww….

So, I decided to poke a little fun at this and create these gift tags, especially for homemade goodies. “Merry Christmas! Homemade with love (and clean hands, we promise!)” I figure it will get a smile out of the teachers. I made red, green, and blue ones, which you can print out with this gift tags for homemade goodies printable.

While my boys’ main teachers are getting movie theater gift cards for Christmas (I saved money by getting them at Sam’s Club), their assistants and other teachers are getting a homemade treat this year: crockpot cinnamon sugar almonds.

Crockpot Cinnamon Sugar Almonds

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg white
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 cups almonds
• 1/4 cup water

Directions

• In medium bowl, mix together brown sugar, sugar, cinnamon, and salt.
• In large bowl, beat egg white and vanilla until frothy.
• Add almonds to the egg mixture, stirring to make sure all the almonds are coated.
• Spray crockpot with cooking spray, add almonds, then cinnamon sugar mixture and stir to combine.
• Turn the crockpot to low and set your timer for 20 minutes. Every 20 minutes for the first 2 hours, you’ll stir the almonds (maybe you can easily remember to do this, but I set a timer each time).
• During this time, you’ll probably feel like you’ve done something wrong, like there’s too much cinnamon sugar mixture and that it’s not really coating your almonds and you’ll begin to think this was a giant waste of time and money… but just hang on til the next step.
• At the 2 hour mark, add 1/4 cup of water and stir.
• This the the step that will make you go oh, I see how this is going to turn out and you’ll heave a huge sigh of relief that you’ll get more use out of these almonds than just the fantastic aroma that is now filling your house.
• Continuing stirring every 20 minutes until you hit the 3 hour mark.
• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (or foil or wax paper will work if you happen to not realize you’re all out of parchment paper until you go to line your pan and you don’t feel like running to the store… ahem).
• Spread the almonds on to the sheet, making sure to separate them because they’re rather sticky at this point. They don’t have to be completely separated, but you’ll want to break up the big clumps.
• Allow to cool and then package them up for gifts (or go ahead and eat them, no judgment here).

This was originally published on 12/15/15. But since it’s perfect for Christmas, I thought I’d share it again.