Holiday Baking Kit

Throughout the year, I’m always looking for ways to incorporate “acts of kindness,” activities for my kiddos & I to do together.

Last Spring, we made Gooey Butter Cookies, wrapped them up in adorable little boxes with a quick little gift tag, and we went about the neighborhood, delivering happiness. My boys were able to experience “giving,” and got some fresh air while we were at it. 😉

Holiday Baking Kit

We all know that the holiday season is all about giving, and being kind to others. It’s FULL of opportunity and excuses to perform acts of kindness with your littles!

To get in the full-blown holiday spirit, we made a surprise drop-off of a holiday baking kit at one of our neighbors house. This neighbor goes ABOVE & BEYOND for us, anytime a need arises. It was a no-brainer when we were trying to decide who would receive our Holiday Baking Kit.

Spread Cheer:

My kids LOVE “hands-on,” so creating a holiday baking kit like we did here… the kiddos are able to help in the kitchen & participate in the “gift-giving.”

Betty Crocker has a “Spread Cheer,” campaign taking place, where you create a sweet little gift for someone, and encourage them to keep spreading the cheer with others. How fun, right?! We took part in this challenge, pronto.

Get to Baking:

Gather all the goodies –  Make sure you get a pack of cookie mix for YOU, and at least one cookie mix for THEM. Get all sorts of “cookie decorating,” extras, that you can include in your kit. Icing, sprinkles, Easy Writers, etc.

Get home & Get Baking – Get ready for a mess, {but a fun mess}, and get to baking those cookies with your littles! {We just used one pack of cookie mix, and it made quite a few! Enough to put in our kit, and enough to have left over for our hungry little tummies.}

Remember that “mess,” I warned you about? It was totally worth it…

Get that camera out. I can’t tell you how thankful I am, looking back at photos of my little guys helping during these times. Perhaps it’s because I just get to “look,” at the mess again… but don’t actually have to clean it up again. 😉

The little kitchen gadget quickly became a fan-favorite in our kitchen, and it measured out the perfect size of cookie, for those little hands.

Pass the Time – While the cookies were baking, my kiddos passed the time by coloring on free printables that you can download on the Betty Crocker website, that went right along with our baking theme we had going on.

It was so cute watching them color and talk about the little cookie shaped pictures… and hearing them say every 5 seconds,

Mom, are the cookies ready yet?

Eeeeek! The cookies were done, and they looked BEAUTIFUL! Perfect for gift-giving. I’m tellin’ ya… using a Betty Crocker cookie mix… was the way to do it.

Create the “Kit”:

I usually try to keep plain boxes on hand for last-minute to-go items/left-overs/or spur of the moment baking extravaganzas… so we can hand them out as needed.

I grabbed a cupcake box, took out the inserts, and staggered all of the Betty Crocker goodies all around… and plopped a treat bag full of the Peanut Butter cookies, right in front.

This way… they can eat cookies right away, AND have all of the ingredients and necessities to make their own mess {ahem, I mean holiday baking kit}, for someone they love! 😉

Then… my FAVORITE part?  Betty Crocker has free gift tag printables that you can download and add to your holiday baking box.

I grabbed some ribbon, printed and cut the tags out, and our baking kit was complete & ready to deliver to the doorstep of our neighbors house.

Oh my goodness, how cute & fun is this!? I taped the little instruction card on their door, to explain how they can continue to spread cheer if they want to!

I texted my sweet neighbors {they weren’t home when we delivered} and told them that we left a package for them on their doorstep. A few minutes later, we received the sweetest text:

Awe, it’s so cute! Our kids already tore into the box and are decorating the pre-made cookies!

I had such a good time in my kitchen with my little guys. Just before bed, my son always likes to say,

Mom, what was YOUR favorite part of the day?

Needless to say, making cookies & delivering the treats was my answer. His response?

Me too.