Holiday Popcorn Buckets

When my older daughter was attending preschool in Chicago, she went to school with a little girl whose mother was a well-known event planner.

And while I was certainly aware of what she did, I never really gave it a lot of thought.  To me she was simply a fellow mom engaging in the same joys and struggles that I was experiencing.

There was, however, one time when I got a teensy glimpse into her world.

It was very pretty.

And very fun.

You see, on this particular occasion she was involved in planning the preschool's holiday fair.  In her world this was probably just tiny blip on the radar, but to me it was incredibly inspiring.

One of the many little details that intrigued me was a table filled with holiday buckets containing a mixture of candy & popcorn.  It was such a simple idea, but executed so brilliantly that I've kept it in the back of my mind all of these years.

She simply bought up a bunch of metal Christmas buckets in Target's Dollar Section.  (They have them there every year.)  Then she mixed red and green candies with popcorn and served them up in the buckets.

It was festive and simple--the perfect idea for a holiday gathering.

Well, being the hoarder, um, savvy shopper that I am, I quickly realized that these buckets go on sale after the holidays.  Every year I scoop a bunch up, usually at about 75% off.  (That's right, for about twenty-five cents apiece.)

This year the girls and I decided to use them for their holiday gift offerings.  (Read about last year's gifts HERE.)

 I'm not going to lie.  I shamelessly stole my friend's entire idea. And it was so darned easy, and turned out so stinking cute, that I'm now I'm going to share it with you:

1. Buy a big bag (or two) of Kettle Corn.  (I got mine at Whole Foods.)
2. Buy some red and green candy.  (I used mint M&M's, dark chocolate M&M's and red hots.  We wanted Jelly Bellies but couldn't find them in red and green.)  
3. Mix candy and popcorn in a big bowl.
4. Scoop into bread bag-lined buckets.  (<-- I used bread bags because I had them and didn't want the mixture falling out of the buckets as we transported them to school.)
5. Tie with baker's twine.
6. Label.  (I used my Silhouette, but you could also just attach cute gift tags.)

The whole process took about an-hour-and-a-half and cost under $25.  That's not bad when you consider that we now have 21 gifts to hand out to the girls' friends on the last day of school.

Feel free to jump in on this action--but just be sure to leave a few buckets for me at Target's after Christmas sale.  I think I'm going to need to restock!