Easy Movie Night Boxes with Popcorn Bars, Hot Cocoa, and Meat Sticks

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Here's another fun gift idea! One of my many holiday traditions that I look forward to every year is watching all of my favorite Christmas movies. I especially enjoy sipping hot beverages like hot cocoa, eating popcorn, and nibbling on other snacks, which is why I know others would enjoy a homemade movie night box filled with goodies. For this box, I made marshmallow popcorn bars using Orville Redenbacher Popcorn, Swiss Miss Hot Cocoa, and Slim Jim Meat Sticks purchased at Target.

Also available at Target, located in their dollar bin area, are gift boxes in various sizes, perfect to package all the treats.

To begin, let's make some marshmallow popcorn balls. You've likely all made the crispy cereal rice version before, and all I'm doing here is substituting the cereal with popcorn and peppermint crunch bits.

Side note: I love the pop up bowl design of the bags. Although I mostly make stove top popcorn, when I do use bags I always empty it into a bowl since it's rather obnoxious to eat otherwise.

The popcorn balls come together fairly quickly. Begin by lining a 13x9-inch baking dish with parchment. Grease the popcorn.

1. Assemble ingredients: 1-2 bag popcorn, 1 bag mini marshmallows, 1/4 cup unsalted butter, 1/4 cup peppermint white chocolate chips, 1/3 cup white chocolate, 1 tsp shortening, red food coloring.

Pop the popcorn (you may need to use a second bag). Measure out 9 cups, removing any unpopped kernels.

2. Once all the ingredients have been assembled, melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the marshmallows and lower the heat to medium-low. Stir until the marshmallows are completely melted.

3. Remove from heat. Carefully stir in the popcorn, folding to coat with the melted marshmallows. Add the peppermint chips and stir into popcorn. They will probably melt, but that's okay.

4. Place popcorn in prepared baking dish and pack down lightly. Let cool.

5. Melt white chocolate with shortening in a small dish over low heat until smooth. Add however much red food coloring you want to achieve desired color. Drizzle over popcorn bars; let stand until firm.

6. Using overhanging parchment paper, remove popcorn bars and slice into 12-16 squares using a large chef's knife. Wrap individual bars in plastic wrap.

Package the box by lining with a sheet of tissue paper (optional). Place wrapped popcorn bars on the bottom, then add a couple packets of hot cocoa mix, meat sticks, and another packet of popcorn. (You can never have too much popcorn.)

That's about all it takes to put together a festive movie night snack box! Out of all the items, you can put together at least two boxes, making it an affordable gift. To personalize it, add a treat you know the recipient enjoys.

Create a Holiday Treat Basket from Duane Reade

I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper amplification for Collective Bias and its advertiser.

Oftentimes, the hardest people to shop for are the ones we don't know all too well, such as hair stylists, mailmen, coworkers, and even new friends. I like giving gifts, though it's not always in my budget to get something big, not that it's necessary. Small, inexpensive gifts can be thoughtful if personalized, like this gift basket I created with supplies purchased from Duane Reade. A gift like this is also good for a Secret Santa exchange or as a stocking stuffer. By including homemade goodies, it can be personalized even more.

When I was young, I was really into decorating gifts, which is why this cute treat box with a cellophane wrapper stood out to me. It's big enough to fill with a few different, small items, and small enough to be the perfect size for a small gift.

If you're unfamiliar with Duane Reade, it's a drugstore in NYC and a few surrounding areas that is basically a one stop shop. There is also a great selection of holiday supplies, and while I was there I picked up candy for the treat box, wrapping paper, ornament hooks, and gift tags. What stood out to me, among the holiday supplies selection, was an assortment of gift boxes for clothing and other things. I use those more than you'd think, but I usually save various boxes throughout the year to accomplish this task.

For this box, I went with various white chocolate candies, such as peppermint bark and white chocolate truffles. Mini candy canes are perfect for adding an additional sweet holiday touch.

Each treat box includes one box, two cellophane wrappers, two red ribbons, and one gift tag. For an added touch, I lined the box with a sheet of tissue paper, though the inside of the box has a festive red-and-white color scheme and this step can be skipped, if desired.

Fill the box up with treats, then place the box in the middle of the wrapper. Gather the edges and string the red ribbon through the holes of the wrapper. Before tying the ribbons, string one side through the gift tag. Tie shut and curl the ribbons.

That's all it takes to create a sweet (literally) gift. Isn't it cute? If I were someone else, I'd appreciate being the recipient of this gift, but I may be biased since I like all the candy I picked out.

Speculoos Buttons for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap '13

Last year, I kept seeing posts about the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap on various blogs and thought that I'd like to join in next year. So I did! Upon registering, each blogger is given the names and addresses of three other bloggers to whom you'll send a dozen cookies each. The requirement is that you make three dozen of the same cookie, take pictures, and blog about it all on the same day.

I didn't quite get my act together in regards to packaging. I forgot that I can order free small priority boxes from USPS until the last minute, so I wasn't able to package my cookies as decoratively as I wanted. Next year, however, I have a better idea of what to do and will hopefully not make the same mistakes.

When deciding what to bake, I looked for a cookie that I felt would ship well and age well. Also, I wanted a cookie with a high yield so that I didn't have to make more than one batch. I settled on speculoos buttons from Bon Appetit, a small, spicy cookie with a decorative sprinkle edging and a dollop of icing.

A few reviews mentioned that the dough was too dry and crumbly, which is always a concern with slice and bake cookies. To prevent this from happening, I increased the butter from 1 stick to 1 1/2 sticks. The dough needed a little elbow grease to form a ball despite the extra butter, and it probably would have been impossible to work otherwise.

After the dough is portioned into three little logs and frozen overnight, it came time to decorate and bake the cookies. To do this, you gently beat an egg white, then brush a light coating over a dough log. Then, you roll it in decorative sugar, pressing gently so that it adheres. It's best to pour the decorative sugar out on a plate, or a small rimmed baking sheet.

Next, you MUST freeze the dough log for at least ten minutes. Not only will it be easier to slice, but the sugar won't slide off the cookie in the oven. Yeah, that happened. If you're looking to bake exactly 36 cookies, it's crucial that you do not skip that step. (No, I didn't get anywhere close to 90 cookies, as the recipe states.)

When it comes to my wardrobe, I have this problem of picking either black or neutral shades, like tan. The other day, I bought a tan sweater. It wasn't until I took it home and tried it on with my other clothes that I realized that tan is my "safe" color. I returned it for a lovely bright pink.

Obviously, that habit is bleeding over into my baking. If you noticed, the dough is kind of a dark brown. The gold sprinkles might as well be tan, and these cute little gingerbread mean are... brown. I apologize to my food blogger matches for such a monochromatic cookie.

Anyway, to decorate the cookies, you whip up a small batch of icing consisting of confectioners' sugar and water. Next time, I would do a small batch of royal icing or pick a cookie without any icing, since this icing didn't set up well for shipping. I should have kept adding more sugar to it. My bad.

The dollop of icing is then topped with more sprinkles. I chose not to buy dragees, as I wasn't sure how everyone would feel about it. The little gingerbread men looked cute and festive, though, like I said, I should have picked a decoration with a contrasting color.

Despite the blandness in color, I enjoyed making these cookies and I enjoyed the extra cookies I got to taste even more.

I'm glad that I signed up for the cookie swap this year. It's a fun and festive food blog event that reminds me of food blog events back when I first became a blogger. It's not about winning anything, but about food bloggers interacting with each other and building a community, which is what made me want to start blogging in the first place. To sign up, you are required to donate $4 to Cookies for Kids' Cancer, a national non-profit organization that the Cookie Swap partnered with last year, and the donations from the food bloggers are matched (up to $3000) by each of the event's brand partners. The donation is tax-deductible and 100% of the donation goes directly to CFKC.

In addition, the cookie you create must be new to you, meaning you've never blogged about it before. You can also opt-in to receive a few goodies from the brand partners. I've received a 3-piece rubber spatula set from Oxo! That came in handy, as I only had one large rubber spatula.

To Julie, Jamie, and Natasha, I hope you enjoy your cookies!

I received the following cookies from three different bloggers:

1. Chocolate Snickerdoodles from Christina
2 & 3. Shortbread with Chocolate Drizzle from Liz
4. Vanilla Bean Glazed Cinnamon Bun Cookies from Heather

Your cookies were delicious and I loved the packaging! Thank you so much.

And a big thank you to Lindsay from Love & Olive Oil and Julie from The Little Kitchen for continuing to host this amazing event. $13,778.40 was raised for Cookies for Kids’ Cancer!