Hot Chocolate Kits

I've been meaning to put together Christmas gifts to five to friends and neighbors for several weeks now but have quite gotten to it. Despite all my best efforts to start early this year, it's recently come to my attention that Christmas is a mere few days away. 

It's OK though because what I planned to do is actually pretty simple- Hot Chocolate Kits! And let's all be honest here. We love our neighbors, but we don't love them all $40 or even $20 worth. These hot chocolate kits are super economical and are perfect if you need to make a bunch. You probably already have some of the items in your cupboards waiting to be gifted. 

First, I had some mini dessert a spoons left over from my daughter's baby. I got out some chocolate chips from my baking stash and zapped enough in the microwave to dip the spoons in. Voila, chocolate covered spoons! Just let them dry on some wax paper. 

I got out some holiday tins, another find from the dollar store, and began filling my kits. You could use baskets, boxes, or just group the items in cellophane.

I already had white cups on hand, the kind that are perfect for hot beverages.  You could decorate them with holiday washi tape or stickers. If you're giving this to a neighbor with kids, maybe put the stickers on as part of your kit so they can decorate their own cup. If you don't have paper cups ready on your pantry, again, the dollar store is a cheap place to find some.

Then start filling up your kits with foodies that would go great with hot chocolate! Some of the things I used were:

Pirouline cookies

Candy canes 

Mint cookies

Marshmallows 

Chocolate dipped spoons

Red striped paper straws 

Chocolate Santas

I put each item in clear, self-sealing bags to make it look nice, but ziplock bags would work just as great. I even dug out some stickers I had made last Christmas glad to finally put them to good use. The straws were also another left over item I had from a BBQ over a year ago! 

Here's how one of the finished kits turned out! Pretty cute if I do say so myself.

So if you are like me and it just occurred to you that Christmas is in two days, (that's right I said In TWO MORE DAYS!) then this is a great last minute but thoughtful gift you can put together quickly. It'll be just in time to deliver on Christmas Eve. Maybe keep a couple on hand for that friend who brings by a gift even though you didn't know you were close enough to be "gift giving friends." Or put it together for yourself. Nothing makes a winter blizzard bearable like some hot cocoa.