polar express party+hot chocolate recipe

Last Friday evening, we hosted a Polar Express Party for the kids in our neighborhood. We live in a gated circle drive that has 20 homes, almost all of which have young kids. This has been so much fun for Bear, as they all play outside together everyday and have become such good friends. Bear passed out party invitations (free template found here) to his new friends one day after school a couple weeks ago and he talked about the party nonstop after that. He was so excited to have his friends over and watch the Polar Express (we’ve never seen it!) which didn’t end up happening because the kids were having so much fun playing, they couldn’t be bothered to slow down and actually look at the TV. Guess that means the party was a success?!

For privacy reasons, I left most pictures of the other kids off of this post but I wish you could see their sweet little faces. We had a total of 12 kids and 6 adults in our house that evening and it was pure madness in the best possible way. I didn’t take a lot of photos or go all out on decor because honestly, this wasn’t intended to be a Pinterest-worthy event. I wanted to sit back and enjoy everything, not be running around with a camera in my face the whole time. I think we all have more fun that way and Bear is already planning next year’s party! I might need a few more weeks recovery time before I’m ready for that. ;)

(The wires don’t normally hang down from our TV- we are waiting on the Geek Squad to come do some maintenance. The kids didn’t care!)

Right when the kids showed up, we had two gingerbread house kits that they got busy making. The girls got into it more than the boys and seemed to really enjoy decorating the houses. After that, many cookies were consumed and much playing was had. My favorite part of the party was the hot chocolate- I could drink my weight in this homemade crockpot recipe we’ve been making the last several years. If you want an easy hot chocolate recipe that will feed 12-15 and is rich enough to cause cavities by the cup-full, here it is:

The Best Crockpot Hot Chocolate
Ingredients:
6 cups milk
2 cups heavy cream
1 can sweetened condensed milk (12 oz.)
1 pkg. milk chocolate chips (14 oz.)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
Stir all ingredients in crockpot on low heat. Cook on low for 2 hours, stirring every 20 minutes. Switch setting to warm and serve with marshmallows!

We feel really lucky to live in a neighborhood where the kids are all around the same age and enjoy one another’s company (most of the time). Even Boonester couldn’t be bothered to sit still and take a photo, he was having so much fun crawling around after the bigger kids. He will be running around with them before we know it!
Now that we still haven’t seen the Polar Express, Bear and I will be watching it over the weekend. Zach told him we could do something special tonight and he chose to go see The Grinch again…so looks like we will be watching lots of Christmas movies over the next few weeks. I’m not upset about it- bring on all the popcorn, hot chocolate, warm blankets, and snuggles!
xo, Britt