It's a big night around here...Christmas movie night! I'm not going to lie. I've been excited about it all day! The problem is that I have a list of five or six Christmas movies that I want to watch, so I'm thinking it might turn into a Christmas movie WEEKEND.
Let's state the obvious, though. There will be a lot of popcorn and snacks involved. We'll eat things that we definitely should not eat. Don't judge. It's Christmas, ok?
This year, I've started a new tradition whenever we have special movie nights...a movie night snack stand! I think tonight is the third time we've used the snack stand, and it's been a big hit each time. I try to reserve this idea for special occasions so that it truly is a treat!
The snack stand only takes a few minutes to put together. Obviously, you need to have a few sweet and salty snacks on hand to pull this off. This week, I bought Cretors Cheese and Caramel popcorn and some seasonal candy favorites. I also had some M&Ms and snack-sized bags of chips and cookies in the pantry that I decided to add to the mix.
The secret to a perfect snack stand is individual portions of each snack. I pre-portioned the popcorn in Christmas takeout boxes. (Most of the time, though, I use disposable cups as my popcorn containers. I'm cheap like that!) I used individual bags of chips and cookies. Then, I put some M&Ms, Hershey's Kisses, and Jolly Ranchers in mini cups with lids. This is my favorite part of the whole snack stand! There is a reasonable amount of candy in each cup, and you don't feel too bad if the kids grab a few of them (and they don't have to share). You can also add theatre box candy to your snack stand, and that's a big treat for the older kids and adults. Honestly, we have younger kids around tonight, so if we open a big box, we'll just pour samplings into our mini cups. It works great!
Of course, you'll notice in the pictures that I have a fancy two-tiered stand that I use to display the snacks. This stand is totally unnecessary. You can set up the snacks on your kitchen countertop or on the living room coffee table. The display is just a bonus that I happened to find earlier in the year at Sam's Club. (I normally use it as the continental breakfast station whenever we host overnight guests. So perfect for that!) The bummer is that this stand is out of stock on the Sam's Club web site, but I'm sure you can find something similar online if you just have to have it!
Well, I've got to run. The movie's about to start! Have a great weekend!