The Secret is Out

In celebration of Christmas, my gift is the devotional below and the recipe that comes with it.  A few years ago, I wrote this for an Advent devotional book for the church I was serving.  Each writer was invited to submit a recipe along with their devotional material.  This one means a lot to me.  I hope you enjoy it.

I wish you a bountiful feast this Christmas and always!

Years before I was born, my grandmother clipped the recipe for Kris Kringles from a newspaper.  I have never known life without them. 

It is hard to explain Kris Kringles without using the overblown language of TV commercials, but they really are indescribably delicious.  Our family made them every Christmas season and they never lasted long.  They were that good.  I especially loved taking them to parties, because no one else would ever have anything nearly as wonderful.  I loved having the best and it seemed that mine was the only family who knew how to make this amazing dessert.  It is no small thing for me to offer it to the world on this page.

Not long ago, however, I looked on the back of a cereal box and was horrified to see our recipe!  It was under a different title but almost exactly the same as the recipe my grandmother clipped years ago.  Our secret was out.  The recipe that seemed to be ours alone for so long was now widely available to anyone who cared to look!

How tempting it is for us to hoard what is good.  We humans have such difficulty with the idea of sharing, you would think that there was a shortage of good things in the world!  We seem to live with a firm belief in scarcity and a gnawing mistrust of God’s abundance.  Anything good we have must be carefully guarded lest someone else have it too.

What a strange way to behave in the season when we celebrate a baby born with nothing.

During the holidays, we throw lavish parties to honor a child who began earthly life in soil and straw.  We spend what we have (or more) buying gifts to commemorate the gift which cannot be purchased at any price.  How we struggle in all times to trust in God’s abundance, to risk having less so that we may have more.  This Christmas, let’s try again to believe the words of that baby grown up who said “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”

I hope you enjoy the recipe.  It has created many happy memories for me and my family.  In sharing it, I hope that it may produce many more.  That’s how things seem to work in the strange arithmetic of God.  Giving away equals multiplication.  Loss equals gain.

May you be blessed by love and Kris Kringles this holiday season.

Kris Kringles Candy

1 cup sugar                         6 cups rice cereal

1 cup light corn syrup     1 6 oz. pkg. chocolate chips

1 cup peanut butter        1 6 oz pkg. butterscotch chips

In large dutch oven or boiler, cook sugar and corn syrup over moderate heat till boiling.  Remove from heat; stir in peanut butter, mix in cereal.  Press lightly into buttered 13” x 9” pan.  Let harden.  Melt (over hot water or in microwave) chocolate and butterscotch chips, stir to blend.  Spread over cereal mixture.  Chill about 5 minutes until top is firm.  Cut into bars.  Yields approximately 4 dozen.

Note:  I like mint chocolate chips when I can find ‘em. – Marilyn Johnson