Good to Go: Deck the halls with crunchy Christmas snacks

WASHINGTON – Decorating cookies, building gingerbread houses and making peppermint bark are all holiday party traditions my family and kids enjoy. But sometimes the multitude of holiday parties and events can cause a household sugar overload.

To keep everyone’s levels more in check, I went looking for some healthy, but festive, snack ideas to add to December’s party mix and munch.

These ideas are both easy and fun. The strawberry Santas and veggie Christmas trees require very few ingredients. And little ones can help with the assembly.

Here’s what you will need to prepare these treats:

Strawberry Santas:

  • Strawberries
  • Whipping cream, cream cheese or some white food filler — if you’re feeling super healthy, try tofu
  • Chocolate sauce, sesame or other seeds

SantaPhotos300.jpg

These Santa hats are filled with cream and decorated with chocolate for a sweet treat. (WTOP/Katie Howard)

Slice the top of the crown off the strawberry and a smaller slice off the bottom (enough to make for a Santa top). Turn the strawberry upside down and place the flat base on your serving plate. Fill the top with edible white filler. Place the smaller, pointier tip of the strawberry on top of the filler.

Use the chocolate sauce or seeds to make Santa a little face in the white filler (a tip of a toothpick or fine point dipped into the sauce works). Top off Santa’s cap with a white pom pom from the filler used for the face.

The inspiration for this fun recipe came from justapinch.com.

Veggie Christmas Trees:

  • Celery
  • Cherry tomatoes
  • Carrots

Slice the celery stalk into quarter and half-inch pieces. Then, arrange the celery into a Christmas tree design on your serving plate with the quarter-inch slices toward the top of the tree and the half-inch slices toward the bottom.

Slice the cherry tomatoes and use them as ornaments or decorations on the celery tree. Slice a carrot or other type of garnish into a star to place at the top of your “tree.”

The inspiration for this fun recipe came from laughsideasinspiration.com.

Watch a video on how to make the strawberry Santas:

Editor’s Note: WTOP’s Katie Howard is a mom on the go. With two children under age 5, she’s always looking for ways to provide her family fast and healthy snacks, meals and activities. Katie shares her go-to food and family fitness tips on her blog “Good to Go.”

Follow @WTOP and @WTOPliving on Twitter.

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