Quick and easy hot cocoa bar

Hi friends!

Oh the days are flying by right now don’t you think?

I have to admit that this is the first time that I have actually done a hot cocoa bar, and I am not sure why I waited so long.

The kids are loving it and it is their new pit stop after they get home from school and put their backpacks away. I suppose shiny jars full of sweets to add to your hot cocoa are a little tempting!

Setting this up this year made me think of the many years that we have made hot cocoa and loaded up after dark to take a drive to look at all of the beautiful Christmas lights.

Many years ago my oldest and I began this tradition when we had relocated and only knew a couple people in the new area we moved to.

It was Christmastime, I had $200 to my name and we shared a giant bean bag on our living room floor at night eating dinner together and watching our favorite shows.

That was 25 years ago but that little apartment meant so much to both of us. It was a fresh start in a new place, with a teeny lit tree on the kitchen counter and our Christmas kitty curled up with us on that orange bean bag while I saved for a couch.

A huge meal was not in the budget for us, so we decided to make our favorite side dishes which tasted amazing. Stuffing, fruit salad with marshmallows, and mashed potatoes.

A coworker gave me two tickets to see the original Miracle on 34th Street in the old vintage theater downtown. We loved every minute of it, and afterward stopped at the gas station for scalding hot cocoa and set off to look at Christmas lights.

It has become something we look forward to every year.

While our family has grown and combined Troy and I have 6 kids and 5 grands now, our hot cocoa and Christmas light tradition has always been one of my favorites.

One of the things I love the most about it is the folks who go all out and do it year after year. There is the house with multiple grinches and more lights than the Griswold’s. The family that keeps their giant skeleton up after Halloween and has him stringing lights with a Elf hat each year. And so many more.

This year, we won’t need to stop for hot cocoa but instead fill our travel cups with our homemade concoctions surely to keep tootsies warm as our truck lumbers up the hill to start our sight seeing.

This is what I used to make a very easy and quick hot cocoa bar.

I bought a canister of premade hot cocoa mix, it filled the quart mason jar perfectly.

Next, another quart mason jar with mini marshmallows, and three smaller pint mason jars with chocolate chips, wrapped caramels, and crushed candy canes.

We put a bundle of whole candy canes out as well since they make perfect cocoa stirrers.

A couple plates of cookies and a warm pot of water and we were making cocoa in no time!

This was such a quick and fun area to pull together, I see this being something we do every year from now on.

With Christmas lights, of course 🙂

Thank you so much for reading friend, I appreciate you more than you know!

xx, Tanya