My elementary school gal pals and I have a holiday gifting tradition of “hand-made” only. This was prior to Pinterest so we must’ve been poor high school students. I’ve stitched hearts onto fleece blankets, made mason jars full of mulled wine ingredients, boxes of matcha chocolate chip cookies with peppermint bark etc.

This year, I made fudge and cupakes.

I wanted to keep the wrapping simple and clean. I used some branches to substitute for bows because the ice storm snapped my parents’ 35-year-old tree in half and it was going into the shredder anyway.

Some of the fudge I sliced into larger pieces and individually stacked. Others, as shown in the lower left hand corner, I wrapped into bon bons. The cupcake recipe didn’t call for walnuts, but I thought the texture change would be nice with such a rich dessert.