As noted previously on Slashfood, there was a time when candymaking was an expected part of a homemaker's repertoire. The holidays evoke nostalgia, so is candymaking too far a taffy-stretch for December's annual kitchen marathons? Something's got to fill all of those stockings being hung by all of those chimneys with care, and handmade candy exudes charm and tastes good.

Into this fray enters cookbook author Lou Seibert Pappas. Her Christmas Candy Book is a small but thorough indoctrination into the world of bubbling syrups, satiny molten chocolate, silken fondant, springy mazzetta, colorful pastes, gooey clusters, and sticky peels. There are sweetly staged photographs, easily followed recipes and a short history of confectionery (including a section on Christmas candy), with a list of techniques, tools, and those wonderful charts that use phrases like "hard crack stage." (Note to Santa: I now expect to find a candy hammer in my stocking, and promise to respond with enough peanut brittle [page 36] to tear out the molars of all nine reindeer. If reindeer have molars.).

When it comes to Christmas trees, the big debate is usually "live" versus "artificial," with both sides having pros and cons. Live trees can be expensive and get needles everywhere, but they have a wonderful scent and a look of freshness. Artificial trees are easy to put up and are less expensive in the long run, but very few actually look realistic. This year, we can add a third category to that discussion: chocolate. La Maison du Chocolate has a chocolate Christmas Tree for sale. The base is made of dark chocolate pralines infused with mandarin orange and milk chocolate praline infused with winter spices. Decorating the exterior of the tree with a cubist bent are circular and square chocolates in dark, white and milk. It costs $138, but is only available in cities where there is a Maison du Chocolate boutique - New York, London and Paris - because it is too delicate to be shipped.

It's Christmas evening and I'm sitting around the fire at my parent's house with my favorite baking partners: my sister Abby and my babysitter Katie, a family friend. We're mulling over that question that irks every girl who got a couple of new baking toys and has a Costco bag of chocolate chips to use up: what, exactly, should I bake?

That's when I remembered Heidi's recipe for peppermint bark chocolate chip cookies. What a great way to use leftover Christmas candy! (Or, an excuse to hit those post-Christmas 50%-off sales.) You needn't stop at peppermint bark, either - try chopping up any number of leftover chocolate-based confections. We're planning on experimenting with the recipe over the next few days. Anyone else out there baking tonight?