#ShareTheHARIBOFestiveHappy: Making HARIBO Sweet Tree’s for Christmas

With 2020 being such a difficult year for lots of people, HARIBO challenged us to Share The HARIBO Festive Happy by gifting someone special a sweet gesture to enjoy and, no surprise, our children chose their Nanna and Grandad. Living just a few minutes away, our children have always spent a lot of time with my parents and it came as a real shock to them this year that we couldn’t just pop in and out as we were used to. Although at six, seven, eight and sixteen, our children were very accepting of the fact that this was no longer allowed, it was harder for my parents who were painfully aware of how much time was passing them by, how the children were growing up from one week to the next, and how many cuddles and kisses they were missing out on. So a sweet treat like this was just the tonic!

HARIBO have the most amazing and delicious range of Christmas sweets from the classic Starmix to fizzy Tangfastics and whilst the hampers and selection boxes make a wonderful gift by themselves, we had big ideas of how to use them to create something extra special to show my parents just how much we love and miss them.

When I asked the children what they’d like to make the girls instantly launched into an elaborate description of something they had seen on YouTube and, after a lot of questions, I realised they meant Sweet Tree’s. I have seen these advertised a lot over the years, enjoyed eating them at christenings and weddings, but when it came to making them I had no real clue how to go about it. After watching a couple of YouTube tutorials it became clear that it’s actually quite straight forward if you have the equipment and when it comes to getting creative, there really is no right or wrong.

We simply bought small flower pots (you can use glass jars or mugs or plastic tubs, whatever you have lying around), large polystyrene balls (ours were 10cm), wooden dowelling, ribbon, glue, cocktail sticks and of course….HARIBO!!!

To start you can either choose to leave your wooden dowel plain, paint it, colour it or wrap it in ribbon which we did quite easily. You then need to find a way to fix it into your pot which can be done using playdough, weighted items, or in our case we used the polystyrene packaging which allowed the dowelling to slot in perfect!

You then need to position your polystyrene ball on top of the dowel, make sure it’s fully secure and then it’s simply a case of adding your sweets however you choose! You can do this by using cocktail sticks to position them onto the ball like we did, or you can choose to stick them to the ball using icing or melted chocolate. I love that the children could do all of this by themselves, with supervision, and it was a real labour of love with every sweet added (and every sweet popped into their mouths!).

From HARIBO marshmallows to Giant Trees, Strawberry laces to Jelly Beans, the girls added their sweets to the tree whilst chatting about their reasons for choosing Nanna and Grandad to receive their gift. “Grandad loves sweets!” Megan told me, “But he always lets us share!”. “I think Nanna has been really sad without us” Eva said, “This is going to make her so happy!”. And as we added the sweets, with some Christmas music in the background, the twinkle of the Christmas lights filling the room, I loved not only how much fun we had creating them, but how much my parents would enjoy sharing them with the children this Christmas too.

We also talked a lot about our favourite HARIBO with Megan claiming the Marshmallows were most definitely the best! Eva argued you can’t beat the Strawberry Laces, Harry the classic Starmix, and for me it’s a real toss up between Jelly Beans and Tangfastics. HARIBO always make me feel so nostalgic, I can still remember being 15 when HARIBO came to the UK and how there was nothing else like them at the time.

Back to the Sweet Trees and we managed to fully cover the polystyrene balls with enough sweets to keep my parents going until next Christmas! “Grandad likes the fizzy ones because they make his mouth go funny!” Megan told us through a mouthful of Tangfastics as she added the finishing touches to her tree.

Once the tree was complete we added the remaining jelly beans to the flower pot to add a little extra colour and then took a red ribbon to tie around the base to give it that festive feel. I couldn’t believe how well they turned out and once the finishing touches were in place they really did look so impressive! I loved how colourful they were with all of the different types of HARIBO and as well as making the perfect gift, they also make a really unique centrepiece!

 All that was left to do was to write the gift tag to Share The HARIBO Festive Happy, attach it to the tree and then deliver it to my parents house at a safe social distance. I absolutely love this idea and knowing just how happy my parents were when they rang later that day to say they had received it was so lovely to hear! For many this year has been particularly difficult and incredibly isolating and just a simple gesture from a friend, family member, neighbour or even a local hero, can make a huge difference to someone’s day.

HARIBO are inviting others to Share The HARIBO Festive Happy by creating something special using HARIBO sweets and passing it on this Christmas. You could make a Sweet Tree just like ours or something else entirely, but putting a smile on someone’s face is more important this year than ever and I can’t wait to see what you might share using the hashtag #ShareTheHARIBOFestiveHappy. You can check out the HARIBO website here for lots of delicious sweet treats to include!

For now the children are counting down to Christmas until we are finally able to see my parents again and whilst they claim it’s entirely because they have missed them and want to spend some time together, part of me suspects that deep down, on some level, they’re just really hoping Nanna and Grandad will share the Sweet Tree with the three of them….

** We are working with HARIBO on this campaign and have been compensated for our time. All words and opinions are my own **