Friends and Family Fridays

Friends and Family Fridays will focus on fun ways to spend time with the most important people in your lives… your friends and family. We will aim to give you some great ideas for inexpensive and easy ways to make your gatherings more memorable.

I can not think of a better way to beat cabin fever during the winter or a better way to celebrate a snow day than to go sledding! If you have been blessed with SNOW like we have been blessed with snow, embrace the cold weather by hosting a sledding party. It's fun for kids (and adults) of all ages and a great excuse to head outdoors in the winter. Hostessing a sledding party is fairly simple and since we currently have a lot of snow and we are predicted to get a bit more, call up a few families and ask them to join the party. Remind your guests to bring their own sleds, decide on a safe place to sled, and set a time to meet.

Of course, that could be it for your sledding party, but if you know anything about me, a party isn’t a party until some eating occurs, so why not invite everyone back to your home for… a hot cocoa buffet! So what is a hot cocoa buffet, you ask? Well, you supply the hot cocoa and a buffet of fun add-ons and voila, you have a hot cocoa buffet! Here are a few tips to make your post-sledding more memorable:

Hot Cocoa Buffet Suggestions
• Use fancy mugs - I want, want, want polka dotted mugs - just sayin'...
• Have a few varieties of flavored hot cocoa such as peppermint, white chocolate, dark chocolate, or caramel.
• Make sure the milk or water starts out HOT because the room temperature add-ins will cool the cocoa quickly.
• Finely chop your chunky add-ins so they will melt well.
• Have both liquid and dry options for add-ins.

Hot Cocoa Bar Add-Ins
• Mini Marshmallows – can you really have cocoa without marshmallows?
• Peppermint sticks or broken candy cane pieces
• Flavored syrups
• Whipped cream
• Flavored whipped cream
• Sprinkles – special colors for special occasions
• Jimmies
• Chopped up candy bar – heath and butterfingers are personal favorites
• Chocolate chips – I prefer mini chocolate chips because they melt faster

• Chocolate truffles
• Caramel squares
• Gumdrops or gummi bears
• Mini chocolate chips

A sledding and cocoa party, what could be better? This is a great way to spend time with your family and friends (onew blogger friend) without breaking the bank. Better yet, ask each of your families to bring something to contribute to the buffet without telling them what it is for. Most importantly, remember your camera, be safe, and have fun!!

Michelle

Yep, this could be you...