DIY Hot Chocolate Bar {Recipe Included}

Hey-oh!  Can you believe Christmas is a week away!?  Seriously, this year has flown by.  Our shopping is complete.  Most of the presents are wrapped.  So the next few days will be filled with wrapping the rest of the gifts, cleaning the house, last minute grocery shopping and baking, and most importantly, spending time with our families.  This weekend we're headed to Illuminations at our local Botanical Garden.  They have thousands of lights scattered throughout the many gardens so it's always a beautiful time to visit.  We're also off to see "A White Christmas" at one of our local music theaters with my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins (20 total!).  I'm really looking forward to this weekend and making memories with the people we love.

I was fortunate to have the day off today.  I spent a few hours baking Chocolate Cranberry Cookies and Chocolate Meringues (recipes coming soon!) for our work celebrations tomorrow.  I also had the opportunity to enjoy lunch with my husband.  We aren't able to meet up often over the lunch hour due to our schedules, so our lunch dates are always enjoyable.

This past weekend I hosted a bridal shower for my sister-in-law.  The Hot Chocolate Bar was a success and I'm excited to share the details with you!

Hot Chocolate Recipe:
3 cups Swiss Miss Powder Mix - I purchased a bulk can at our local grocery store
3 cups Heavy Whipping Cream
6 quarts Water
Crock pot
Meat thermometer

Directions:
Mix the three ingredients together.  Turn your crock pot on high to heat the hot chocolate.  We used our meat thermometer to keep the temperature of the the hot chocolate around 130 degrees.  Serve and enjoy!

For the toppings, we opted to offer Reddi-Whip, ground cinnamon, crushed candy canes, full size candy canes, mini chocolate chips, marshmallows and white chocolate chips.  We put each item in its own serving dish and let people pick and choose what and how much they wanted.  The bar was a hit!

Enjoying the hot chocolate bar back home!  Yum!

 Next time: Peppermint Meringues!