Merry Christmas!!! Homemade Christmas Candy bars are easy as pie to make and they make a great Christmas gift too! They’d be great for neighbors, family and friends! Plus I’d love to share our yearly  Christmas Tradition with you!

Last night we had our Christmas Date for the year and I thought I’d share a bit and hopefully inspire someone out there too! We pick a different restaurant almost every year and this year we picked 616! Ps. It was amazing!!

When we first got married we didn’t have a lot of money (who am I kidding we were broke as a joke and I think the day we got married that we probably had $20 combined in our bank accounts living pay check to paycheck or day to day on tips from waiting tables in my case).

Our first Christmas we decided that instead of buying giant presents for each other that we would buy some small things to wrap and put under the tree but for the “giant gift” we would do something else. We decided on a “fancy Christmas date”. We were living in NC at the time and drove over to Wilmington, dressed head to toe in the nicest holiday outfits we owned and went to dinner. We scrapped together every penny and dime we had for that date and after eating at The Little Dipper fondue restaurant, we left our waitress a huge tip. THAT was our big gift to each other, a Christmas date and a giant gift to a random waitress.

We have continued this tradition every year since then, this being our 10th year. Some years we scrapped pennies together for the date and the tip but we made it happen. This year we have been blessed beyond a doubt and we are FINALLY to the point of getting ourselves together and we are FINALLY to the point of not struggling. We knew that we really wanted to pay that forward.

Tonight, we picked our restaurant, we dressed up in our “fancy clothes”, went out and had a fantastic dinner just like all the other Christmas date…..except this year we didn’t have to plan or worry or scrape pennies like we did years ago……. and left a tip that I would never have been able to afford to leave in previous years. THAT was our big Christmas to each other this year as it has been every year for the past 10 years!

It made my heart full and I’d much rather spend my money on that than junk I don’t need. I don’t know if I’ve ever told anybody about our Christmas tradition other than just saying it was a “Christmas Date” but I thought it might inspire some others to get out there and have their own yearly fancy Christmas dates and leave their own Christmas date waitress or waiter an over the top tip in place of buying each other a giant Christmas gift.

Believe me, the first time a waitress chases you down outside to tell you thank you and you see them smiling from ear to ear from getting a Christmas gift/surprise 2 or 3 days before Christmas, your heart is going to explode with happiness & you’ll be hooked (heck its still awesome if they dont chase you down, but you know what I mean. No no….of course you won’t do this just because you think someone will say thank you, some years our waitress or waiter will find us before we leave and sometimes not, but that’s not the point of the gift.)

Haha so don’t do it for the Thank you, don’t mention it at the restaurant, don’t tell the server before hand. Just do it. Surprise someone just because it’s Christmas. So go out there!

Have Christmas dates, dress up big time, take that money that you might spend on some junk you don’t need and once a year have a super fancy dinner and leave a tip that is double your bill (or you know whatever amount) and make someone’s Christmas a little brighter!

Get out there and start a Christmas date tradition! ?⛄❤?

Homemade White Chocolate M&M Peppermint Candy Bars