I agreed to host a small holiday get together at my house this year, per Wendy’s orders, haha. I kept saying I didn’t want to do anything this year but she gently prodded until I cried uncle. I kept the guest list small (Wendy’s family, Janna, my friend Margie from work, and Jiyong) and that really helped a lot because I felt less pressure. I still have a bit of PTSD from the last full-blown Xmas party I had in 2016 where every person who said they were going to come, actually did and then somehow everyone seemed to arrive at the same time and my house was packed which is not ideal if you’ve ever been to my house because it’s small AF (it’s a duplex).
But….true to Erin form, I started to get really into planning for this dumb thing. It started after I invited Jiyong because she said it was going to be her first American Christmas party, and I wanted it to be a good experience for her, and not just like, “Here’s a pop and a bowl of chips, babe.”
(Really though – when have any of my parties been that cheap?!)
Anyway, I was perusing YouTube for some Christmas party food ideas when I accidentally stumbled upon the HOT CHOCOLATE BAR scene. Look, I know this isn’t a new concept, but I’m not a lifestyle blogger or Mormon housewife so this has fallen just short of my radar until several weeks ago when some fairly tolerable Canadian DIY YouTuber slipped it into her XMAS PARTY DIY video.
I latched on to this idea HARD. Typically at my parties, I make a punch or a sangria, oftentimes both. It’s kind of my thing—Henry does the cleaning, the shopping, the cooking and I do the decorating and the punch. Literally the most important things. But then I usually end up throwing out the leftover punch the next day and that sucks because I always use quality ingredients! So this seemed like it would be a nice, cheap change of pace.
So I started watching hot chocolate bar DIYs on YouTube and it’s like a whole fucking cult, you guys. These broads are legit insane, covering cans of whipped cream with wrapping paper, buying cute Christmas canisters at HOBBY LOBBY (the grossest) only to hot glue it with twine and BUFFALO PLAID RIBBON. And then they print out labels like people are too stupid to know what white chocolate chips are!?
Chooch and I became obsessed with watching these but I think I already “talked” about that on here. The worst part about it is that these bitches put in so much effort on having a “theme” to their stupid set-up, BUT THEN MOST OF THEM JUST USED SWISS MISS K-CUPS FOR THE ACTUAL HOT CHOCOLATE PART?!
Bitch plz, why you gonna go so many extra miles repurposing a wooden sled sign to say “Baby It’s Cold Outside” (big vomit) and then offer your guests some .50 cent hot chocolate?
So for me, I went light on the “theme” and heavy on the hot cocoa quality because IT’S A HOT CHOCOLATE BAR, PEOPLE. I bought a bunch of Christmas mugs at the dollar store and the thrift store, and then Christmas’d-up my Taemin coffee cup for myself.
I had some candy options, like candy cane Kisses, hot chocolate Kisses, white chocolate chips, and peppermint candies. None of which required me to print out labels purchased from these dumb bitches’ Etsy shops and then cut out with a special scrapbooking paper punch.
Most importantly, I had options in case anyone wanted to take their mug o’ choco up a notch. I made Janna put all the options in hers and she was like, “Oh wow. Mm. Interesting.”
Chooch made fun of me because he thought I purposely went out and bought that “Let It Snow” bowl but I snapped, “It came with a set that someone gave me at work, Chooch!” Jesus, step off, hater.
Oh yeah, and two sizes of marshmallows and those Piroutte stick things, which Chooch’s friend Hoajie was excited about because it worked as a straw.
But the real star of the show, the hot chocolate, was made from scratch in a crockpot by Henry and it was, I feel confident saying this, the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had in my life. It was so rich that really adding anything to it was gilding the lily (did I ever tell you that I learned that phrase from an episode of the home renovation show “While You Were Out” back when I was 23? I think of Teresa Strasser saying it EVERY TIME I TYPE THAT OUT) but it was still incredibly fun plopping in scoops of white chocolate chips and marshmallows! I added some kind of caramel booze to my mug and the end result was LES MAGNIFIQUE, TRULY.
I found out at work on Monday that Margie has never put marshmallows in hot chocolate before (?!?!?) but she saw people doing it that night SO SHE DID IT TOO.
“OMG it was so good! They get all melty and squishy!” she enthused and I was about to ask her if she lives in a bomb shelter but then Wendy came over and interrupted.
I made such a big deal about this damn thing and Jiyong was like, “OK I will get some!” after I asked her for the third time (I was really trying to tone it down since it was her first time at my house, with my friends, and I tend to get really high strung at my house parties).
Blake came over when he came home from work that night and I practically slammed the last remaining Christmas mug in his hands and shouted, “HAVE SOME HOT CHOCOLATE FROM THE HOT CHOCOLATE BAR!” I mean, you don’t ever have to tell Blake twice. He was like, “Ooh! Hot chocolate! OK!” and then made his an adult version.
It was also great because Wendy and Shawn brought their four-year-old daughter, so I think this (in addition to the presents I gave her lol) really helped ease the pain of enduring a roomful of grownups who are constantly asking you questions about your life and how you feel.
In conclusion (sorry, I’m always watching Chooch write his dumb papers for school), I would say that the hot chocolate bar was a big success, anything leftover was non-perishable, and it was fun enough that I would definitely consider adding this to the rotation. There are so many different things you could do as far as mix-ins go, recipes to use, theming I guess even though that’s a bit too Pioneer Woman for me. I’m more of a mix-and-match bitch, to be honest.
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Much later that night, after everyone left, Janna was still here so I was like, “JANNA YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS ONE DUMB LADY’S HOT CHOCOLATE BAR VIDEO” but then Chooch was also there trying to talk to her about the Holocaust, so to get her attention back to me, I started screaming, “JANNA LOOK THIS ASSHOLE IS USING A WINE GLASS TO TURN A CANISTER INTO A PEDASTAL BUT FIRST SHE’S GOING TO MAKE IT INTO A SNOWGLOBE WTF WHY” while Chooch was like, “JANNA BLAH BLAH BLAH HISTORY STUFF HITLER OH SHIT” and Janna honestly looked like she was in some type of ring of Hell which had been uninhabited for trillions of years until now.