Holiday food projects, enlisting the energy and enthusiasm of children, make for great family time in a new home at Crystal Valley. These kid-friendly ideas can involve little hands as they help you create holiday treats that are as much fun to make as they are to eat!

From Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart’s Snowmen are quite the classy concoction, made from vanilla ice cream rolled in coconut and a toasted marshmallow and chocolate cookie top hat.

Remember these? Christmas Hand cookies? Older kids can draw around their hands to outline the cookies on the dough and use a knife tip to cut along the line. You can make a pattern for younger kids from a manila folder. Pop these into a cellophane bag to present to a favorite teacher!

With these snowflakes, only the cheese melts! Fold a flour tortilla in half, then in thirds. Snip out shapes, unfold, and use as the top for a Snowflake Quesadilla. Personally, we’d throw on some shredded chicken with a little salsa on the side!

Teacher Gifts

Marshmallow Snowmen with pretzel arms and a gingersnap base rely on melted caramels to stay together. If you pick up some of those clear cellophane bags at Michael’s or JoAnn’s, you can put some together for teacher treats.

MyRecipes.com has a yummy Pumpkin Fudge recipe using white chocolate and pumpkin pie spices. You can tweak the recipe with more spices, skip the nuts or use dark chocolate chips instead of white! It’s deliciously inexpensive too, making it a great homemade gift (80 pieces for about $10)!

Kids will love this White Chocolate Holiday Bark. Sweet and crunchy, every bite of this candy is loaded with heart-healthy cranberries and antioxidant-rich almonds. Using unsweetened coconut saves a few calories and adds fiber, and you can switch out the cranberries for cherries, which are high in beta-carotene.

Irresistible Eats

Marshmallow-Krispie©  treats are hard to resist, especially when they’re shaped into Christmas trees with icing and M&M©  garland, Rolo©  trunks and gum drop toppers!

These cute little thumbprint cookies are filled with raspberry jam, and what kids do you know who don’t like putting their thumbs in cookie dough?

From Health Magazine, these whole-wheat Sugar Cookies will keep Santa’s heart healthy and yours! Using egg whites and a minimum of butter, the recipe keeps the fat low while a touch of whole-wheat flour adds a fiber-nutrient boost.

Two little girls will show you how NOT to make chocolate tree treats in this YouTube video. It’s not very instructive, but good for a grin!

Kettle Corn

This is super easy to make for kids who like kettle corn, but you’ll want to stay hands-on at the saucepan with two tablespoons of oil popping the corn. The intensely sweet maple sugar flavors this version of a salty-sweet snack.

Or you can take Bearitos Organic Microwave Popcorn (can’t find it? Amazon will ship!) with no salt and no oil and make this Cinnamon Sugar sweet ‘n’ salty treat.

Breakfast Anyone?

For a special breakfast, try these green Christmas Tree Pancakes with a cream cheese frosting “garland”, berries for ornaments, and powdered sugar for snow!

If you have a waffle iron, this yummy Apple Stuffed French Toast tutorial we found on Pinterest looks both easy and delish. (Almost makes you want to buy an iron if you don’t already own one, right?) More kid-friendly recipes (like Broccoli Cheddar Egg and Baked Oatmeal Cups) from Pinterest here.

Crystal Valley Family-Friendly Kitchens

The new homes in the master-planned community of Crystal Valley feature kitchens perfect for family food projects, with room to move and energy-efficient appliances. If you don’t live here yet, stop in to see the new floor plans from Richmond American Homes, near all the holiday activities and attractions around Castle Rock. Priced from the $300s.