A Peppermint Tradition

Sunday night was our work Christmas party and I finally feel like I am in the holiday mood.  I know I work in a retail environment, so we have been decorated and ready for nearly a month, but personally it has felt like Christmas is far far away.  Now suddenly it is a week out and I am finding myself enjoying every bit of it.  While frantically trying to make sure I have everyone's gifts lined up at the absolute last minute, of course.

Like many people, I have certain personal traditions that I only allow myself at Christmas time.  One is listening to Christmas in the Stars, which I may have convinced Chris to make our new family tree decorating album (I labor under the delusion that he will even allow me to mention it again next year).  The other is peppermint fudge ice cream.  No, not store bought made to taste like peppermint, but a very basic and inexpensive yet somehow decadent treat.

All you need is some vanilla ice cream (I usually get whatever is on sale), ice cream fudge sauce, and peppermints.  I recommend Sweet Stripe peppermints.  They have a hard shell, but are soft on the inside, which makes it much easier to accomplish the one step of actual prep for this dessert -- smashing the peppermints!

My crushing utensil of choice is The Anatomy of Communist Takeovers, but if you are a little short on Cold War era texts, any heavy book or breadboard will work fine.  I think one year I even used a wine bottle.

Then, just warm up the sauce and serve!  I usually eat this out of a coffee mug rather than a bowl so that I can pretend I'm in front of a fire place.  It is the prefect treat for weather like this.

While reading by the light of this.