I’m not sure exactly how this tradition started but I have a feeling it was probably something my aunts did when I was little. My mom has four little sisters and they liked nothing better than to spoil me when my mom, their mean big sister, wasn’t looking.

Whipped cream sprayed right into my mouth, chocolate chips in my pancakes, square dancing in the kitchen, homemade tortilla chips in the broiler just because I asked how chips were made, a stash of presents on the top shelf for “just because” days…I have so many fond memories of my crazy aunts.

Naturally, when I was blessed with a daughter (after waiting many many years) I found myself wanting to be just like them. There is nothing more fun than the conspiratorial gleam in a child’s eye when they know you are letting them do something that is just a tiny bit forbidden. Chocolate for breakfast? Why not! Grown ups can be fun too, right?

So over the years we added chocolate milk powder and then food coloring and then we started putting the pancake batter in squirt bottles and next thing you know the pancake decorating turned into an olympic event. What they taste like is completely irrelevant.

This is what we like to call Garbage Pancakes. They taste like crap. But they are so much fun to make!

Oh yeah.

A dash of this a swirl of that. Halloween candy? Why not.

It’s a bear! It’s a plane!

It’s Super Turkey with a burned up beak! Eat one of these and you’re guaranteed to crave broccoli for lunch (or something else healthy if you’re not a fan of broccoli).