It’s Christmas Eve Eve, y’all!

Everyone’s anxiously awaiting the big day. We’re eating lots of good junk food and wearing our pajamas for longer than usual. Can’t complain about that. I even went to the grocery store today and found people cheerful and relatively patient. So glad there are plenty of folks left who realize that stress just isn’t worth the trouble when it comes to the holidays.

OK, so I admit that the title of today’s blog entry is the only “drummy” thing about the pie. The need to use the apples I had on hand over ruled creativity. Besides, the red hot candies in this apple pie made it downright festive for the 12th pie of Christmas.

Red Hot Apple Pie is exactly like regular apple pie, except that I added a 1/4 cup of cinnamon candies instead of cinnamon. It really smells wonderful when it’s baking, and it gives the pie a gorgeous candy-red coloring.

This pie also had a crumble crust because I only had a bottom crust ready. Crumble crust is a delicious use of flour, brown sugar, and butter. And just in case it wasn’t pretty, I placed a cheery red pie bird in the crust before I added the filling.

It’s a good thing I did, because it was pretty bubbly and kinda oozed over the sides. I was so glad I had placed the pie pan on another pan to bake. Otherwise, I would’ve been cleaning up some sticky red goo.

The pie was far from perfect, but it smelled perfectly delicious, so I sent it with my daughter to her yearly Christmas Eve Eve sleepover at her friend’s house. No one gets a warmer welcome than a woman holding a pie, that’s for sure! I hope they have fun together and get at least a little sleep.

Truth be told, there will probably be 13 or 14 Pies of Christmas, because someone asked me today to bring a pie with me on Christmas Day. Glad to do it. Besides, making 13 or 14 Pies of Christmas makes me a crazy pie-baking rebel of sorts, right?

Pa-Rum-Pa-Pum-Pum and Merry Christmas Eve Eve to all!