Joanna Gaines working on an elaborate Christmas project, with all her kids, is so relatable

Joanna Gaines got real on her Instagram Story while making Christmas candy with her kids. (Photo: Mireya Acierto/FilmMagic)
Joanna Gaines got real on her Instagram Story while making Christmas candy with her kids. (Photo: Mireya Acierto/FilmMagic)

As a designer and restaurant owner, Joanna Gaines does not mess around when it comes to Christmas. The decorations she has shared with fans on social media are magazine-ready, and the cookie recipes on her blog look like something from a Williams-Sonoma catalog. But on Saturday afternoon, it seemed she was about to drop one holiday tradition: making candy.

“Was planning to make Christmas candy today and start at 9 am. It’s now 4 pm and not looking good for the home team,” she wrote on her Instagram Stories, over a video of 5-month-old baby Crew cooing and kicking his legs in her bed. That situation seemed way too cozy and cute to leave for the massive undertaking that making candy can be.

Eventually, however, both mother and baby got up and joined her family, including Gaines’s other four children and her sister, in the kitchen.

“Sister came for emotional support,” she wrote. “Here we go.”

Joanna Gaines’s Instagram story. (Photo: Instagram)
Joanna Gaines’s Instagram story. (Photo: Instagram)

Though they seemed to be making enough candies to feed all of Waco, Texas, Gaines was using recipes even mere mortals might be able to whip up. As the group made peanut butter balls (peanuts, Rice Krispies, sugar and butter dipped in melted chocolate) and peanut butter clusters (simply salted peanuts mixed with melted chocolate), she made fun of their appearance.

“Sometimes you gotta just let go of your expectations and embrace the fact that your candy looks like poop,” she wrote.

Joanna Gaines’s Instagram Story. (Photo: Instagram)
Joanna Gaines’s Instagram Story. (Photo: Instagram)

Another easy recipe involved spreading peanut butter on Ritz crackers, dipping them in white chocolate and then adding sprinkles to them. Still, it looked like things were starting to fall apart in the Gaines home. In one pic, she called a stack of the cracker sandwiches “dinner.” She showed some of them on the floor. Crew cried and scooped out some treats, and she said they were both over it.

Gaines even burned a pot of white chocolate, causing her to use the hashtag “#startingtolosecontroloverhere” and then remind us, “I have a cookbook.”

Joanna Gaines’s Instagram Story. (Photo: Instagram)
Joanna Gaines’s Instagram Story. (Photo: Instagram)

If this were anyone else, and we were watching this unfold in real time, we might expect this to be the end of the story. A mom of five would be forgiven for closing up shop right there — just let the kids lick the bowls and be done.

But not Joanna Gaines. She kept soldiering on, and finally she showed the fruits of her labor: a table filled with dozens of cooling treats and small gift boxes waiting to be filled. The end result was again worthy of a magazine cover — only even more beautiful because we saw how much work she put into it all.

Joanna Gaines’s Instagram Story. (Photo: Instagram)
Joanna Gaines’s Instagram Story. (Photo: Instagram)

We hope she took a nice, long break afterward — and that someone else did the cleanup.

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