I Tried To Make Candy Spaghetti Like Buddy The Elf

I love Christmas. I love spaghetti. I love Elf. It was only a matter of time before I tried to make Buddy the Elf's spaghetti recipe. In a desperate attempt to get in the Christmas spirit, I binge watched holiday favorites like Love, Actually, Elf, and all the Christmas episodes of The Office. My two takeaways were 1.) Steve Carell deserves an Emmy, and 2.) I should make candy spaghetti RIGHT. NOW.

Buddy, ever faithful to his four favorite food groups (candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup, for those wondering), always made sure to work all of those ingredients into a bowl of pasta — so I decided, for the sake of Christmas, to try it myself. Which is exactly what I did.

I bought a bunch of candy and a single jar of tomato sauce, and confused the Trader Joe's cashier, all in the name of Christmas. And guess what? It's awful. Buddy's spaghetti is truly awful. Which is crazy, because I adore all of these ingredients separately, but together they are just the worst.

Maybe I hated it because I was raised on Staten Island, and not in the North Pole? Maybe I hated it because I was not allowed to have candy growing up? Or maybe I hated it because it's tomato sauce topped with chocolate syrup and candy, and it is crazy to think that this combination might ever be delicious. Below is the recipe I made up based on the scene in the movie. Proceed with caution.

Buddy The Elf Spaghetti Recipe

Serves one (or zero if you hate it like I did)

Ingredients:

• Spaghetti
• Tomato sauce
• M&Ms
• Chocolate chips
• Chocolate syrup
• Pop-Tarts (crushed)
• Marshmallows

Instructions:

1. Cook your spaghetti to perfection.

2. Add your preferred tomato sauce, maple syrup, M&Ms, chocolate chips, chocolate syrup, marshmallows, and crushed Pop-Tart.

3. Mash together with your hands as Buddy does.

4. Enjoy. Or don't.

This is a GIF I made of my dish. It's prettier than it tastes.

My Overall Review:

This is a GIF of Buddy the Elf's reaction to eating this dish, and this is also a GIF of the exact opposite reaction I had:

See how he is gobbling it up? Here is me moments before I gagged and had to trash it.

The problem with the recipe is the tomato sauce. Without that, I'm sure this would have been delicious. Without the sauce, it would have been just carbs and sugar, and who could hate that?

I'm sure this is delicious to elves in the North Pole, but for those of us raised on human food, I do not recommend. Big thumbs down.

Am I In The Christmas Spirit Though?

YUP. The good news is that this experiment put me in the Christmas spirit — a feat I believed to be impossible, especially in this 50 degree New York City weather. Plus, I will most definitely watch Elf again, just because it is the best holiday movie. But I will never again eat pasta with any kind of topping that you'd also find in a kid's Halloween bag.

Looking for more holiday cheer? Check out Bustle on YouTube.

Images: Giphy (2), Corinne Caputo (4)