One of the things I was most excited about doing with the Grands while they were here for Christmas was the candy cane hunt.  I invited ten other kids to come so it would be a party and Elsa and I made candy cane cookies and candy cane cupcakes and we set up the table and got everything ready to go...

We even made signs for the hunt and the mister said he would get up early and go put them around on the trails for the kids to know which direction to go.  I had 250 candy canes, all individually wrapped and ready, buckets for the kids to use and cute Santa hats for everyone...yours truly was beside herself with glee thinking about the all the fun we would have!

Elsa and Max both helped with the signs, they were very excited, too!  But as the evening went on, Max started asking questions about the the kids, like how were the kids going to get to our house?  Were their parents going to be at the hunt?  How many people would that be?  Thirty???  Max started thinking about this, 30 people, 10 little and 20 big, and that was just too.much.for.him.to.handle.  I still feel guilty about it...what was I thinking?!?!?  I'm his grandma, I should know what he can and can't handle!  But Autism is tricky.  At times Max is perfectly normal.  He rode the Monorail with dozens of people, to go to see the play Annie with hundreds of people, and he walked around the city with thousands of people.  He was doing great with crowds!  However, having 30 people in the house was too much.  He worried and stressed and no amount of us telling him it would be okay helped, he was just not able to do it.  And that was okay.  I let our friends know we needed to cancel the hunt and they all understood.  Elsa was a bit sad but even at age 6, she understood how hard this was for Max.  When I told Max the hunt was off, he was immediately fine, all was well and off to bed he went.  In the morning, Max asked me if the hunt would be like an Easter egg hunt and I told him it would be exactly the same only with candy canes and he laughed and said that sounded fun and that maybe next year we should do it!  So next year we'll try again...because you're never to hold to hunt for candy canes!

This is the only picture I snapped of the cookies, I was too busy enjoying Elsa, who was all candy-cane-bizzness, and forgot about pictures!  Elsa doesn't like the taste of peppermint so we made some cookies without the peppermint extract, and just added in another teaspoon of vanilla, they were yummy.  These cookies flew off the plate because they were so good and because it was Christmas and calories don't count.

Candy Cane Cookies - Adapted From Betty Crocker, The Original Candy Cane Cookie

1 cup sugar

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon peppermint extract

1 egg

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon red food coloring

2 tablespoons finely crushed peppermint candies/candy canes

2 tablespoons sugar