We finally put up Christmas decorations and lights a couple of days ago- it feels like Christmas around here!

1./ Yes. It’s true. We put up a airplane themed Christmas tree. In our defense, it’s a really tiny tree.  2./You can’t really see it in this picture, but we have a silver guest bathroom. My dad just doesn’t get it- he says it looks like the inside of a tin can. 3./Isn’t this wreath unusual? It’s a boxwood wreath from Trader Joe’s.

This is “skinny Santa”- he’s one of our favorite Christmas decorations. This year he’s stationed on our living room coffee table.

And now in the spirit of Christmas, here’s my new favorite recipe- homemade hot chocolate- it’s so delicious. I highly modified the recipe on the back of the Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa powder box until I liked it.

The recipe below calls for two cups of milk, but it’s easily rich enough to add a bit more milk. So if you wanted to stretch it into two servings, that would totally work.

Homemade Hot Chocolate

(makes one very large serving)

2 cups of milk

2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

2 Tablespoons sugar

1/8 tsp. of cinnamon (scant)

1/2 tsp. of vanilla

1/8 tsp. of peppermint extract (optional)

Heat two cups of milk in small saucepan. While it heats, mix cocoa powder, sugar and cinnamon in small bowl and whisk into the milk. Add vanilla and peppermint extract (if desired), and heat mixture until hot, but not boiling. Pour into a mug and add marshmallows if you’d like.

^^^My favorite big blue mug. It’s huge and holds the full two cups called for in the recipe.

Jordan