Hot Chocolate Stations - how does it work?

[DiamondBright]

I'm not criticising anyone, I just don't understand how they fit into Christmas.

If you have one is hot chocolate with marshmallows and candy canes etc. a regular thing in your house in the winter anyway, so it makes sense to keep all the fixings on display? Is it a daily treat?

I get maybe setting one up for a party or maybe on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day if you have guests but I gather they go up with the tree and stay up all December in some homes.

I don't have snacks out all December either and I know people have Christmas snack baskets, in the world of Instagram and YouTube anyway. Maybe I'm just the wrong demographic, I'd like to be eating treats and drinking hot chocolate all December but i already have a weight problem and wouldn't trust myself.

I bake and put out chocolates but not usually until around the 22nd or 23rd.

We put ours out on 1 December for the month but my DSC come twice a week so it's 2 hot chocs a week max. They wouldn't help themselves to anything from the station without asking so it's either a hot choc with the trimmings or nothing. We tend to use it in place of a dessert throughout December and they get their advent calendars at the same time as the station opens. We don't put our decorations up until a week/10 days before Christmas so we like to do something a little earlier.

I got carried away between covid and Pinterest and set one up last year. It took up too much space for something that wasn’t that popular. I’d consider it for a party, but otherwise it’s not for us.

There are Christmas snack baskets? Who on Instagram has them so I can see them? I've heard of hot chocolate station but not christmas snack baskets.

I'd never heard of this until this week on Mumsnet. I get it for an occasional treat, for example on bonfire night or Christmas Eve, but isn't it incredibly unhealthy? I'd be the size of a house.

It's always on the Family Lockdown FB group - but honestly it looks like a faff & surely it would take up space? I'd rather just put the stuff away I think. Bah humbug.

Sounds a bit naff and all for insta! If you want a hot chocolate just make it and put the stuff back in the cupboards. I find all this stuff people do for Instagram snaps incredibly vain.

I think it sounds lovely for an event or Christmas Eve or something, but I can't imagine having it all out for all of Dec.

Nor snack baskets, I'd need the front door widened!!

@TheJakeWay

There are Christmas snack baskets? Who on Instagram has them so I can see them? I've heard of hot chocolate station but not christmas snack baskets.

Not sure where I saw the basket tbh could have been a YouTuber, it was basically a wicker basket full of savoury and sweet snacks alongside the hot chocolate station. I've seen lots of the hot chocolate stations with cookies, gingerbread men etc.

In this house Christmas goodies are opened on my say so 😂 and spread out across a week at most from around the 23rd onwards.

I believe you go to home bargains or b&ms buy more tatt you don't really need then post to other huns on Facebook.

I have never heard of a ‘hot chocolate station’ until this thread. Festive consumerism gets more and more batshit every year.

I think this week was the first most of us had heard of this being a "thing".

It is of course just another fad driven by Instagram bollocks of a photo perfect moment.

Pure pish.

I've never heard of this before, having just had a google I can proudly say I'm ahead of the curve. We frequently don't get around to putting away the shopping straight away and my hot chocolate powder, biscuits, and chocolates are often just left on the counter. Not even December 1st yet.

I quite like the idea of a hot chocolate station. We don't go in for all the Instagram stuff - I'm most definitely not the target demographic - and we don't do the elf on the shelf thing or anything like that. But I think a hot chocolate station might be nice this year. I am heavily pregnant so the run up to Christmas this time is going to be a bit slower paced than DC are used to and I think it could be a nice addition to the odd day at home with a Christmas movie and some quiet colouring type activities. DD would love it for sure.

Mindless clutter.
Not happening in my kitchen!
We have hot chocolate, marshmallows and flakes in the cupboard, squirty cream and milk in the fridge.
Anyone can knock themselves out and make one whenever they want, we have the stuff in most of the year round anyway.
Dc might have one a week in the winter. I don’t have anything out on my kitchen sides except a kettle and the coffee machine. I could live happily without either of them (don’t drink hot drinks!), there’s no way I’d be leaving crap out on the sides for this!

These kinds of threads make me really glad I don’t do Instagram. I’m quite happy remaining oblivious to this kind of stuff.

I also don’t understand all the leaving it laying out and calling it a station to have a coupe of drinks a week. Put it in the cupboard like everyone else and if you fancy a hot chocolate have one.

If anyone wants a hotchoc ask and one will be made ( as long as it's not at breakfast time or just before dinner, or if you've already had a huge pudding etc ), I'm not having the faff of the slow cooker out on the side for weeks or little bowls of sticky things getting melty throughout December.
We do however (slight double standard alert!) have a box of chocs or biscuits etc open on the side a week or so before the 25th that anyone passing can dip in to.

Christ not another stick for Mums to beat themselves up with. Elf on a feckin shelf, Christmas Eve boxes, special pyjamas, hot chocolate stations...what next?!

I wouldn't have room for one anyway, I might manage a hot chocolate Tupperware box that could come out, be used and put away again but definitely don't have counter space for anything to sit out.

We have one(ish) - basically don't have the cupboard space to store it and the kids make a lot of hot choices so it's all contained on one tray to stop the flavour syrups getting welded to the kitchen bench basically. I just call it the hot chocolate station because "dumping drip tray" doesn't sound as good.

@LivingDeadGirlUK

I've never heard of this before, having just had a google I can proudly say I'm ahead of the curve. We frequently don't get around to putting away the shopping straight away and my hot chocolate powder, biscuits, and chocolates are often just left on the counter. Not even December 1st yet.

@MaidenoftheSpear

If anyone wants a hotchoc ask and one will be made ( as long as it's not at breakfast time or just before dinner, or if you've already had a huge pudding etc ), I'm not having the faff of the slow cooker out on the side for weeks or little bowls of sticky things getting melty throughout December. We do however (slight double standard alert!) have a box of chocs or biscuits etc open on the side a week or so before the 25th that anyone passing can dip in to.

I'll put out a bowl of nuts (in shells) and tangerines on the kitchen table at some point around the 23rd and I have a nice glass jar that gets filled with red and white mints and lives near the tea caddy for a week or so, a box of chocolates (or two) will appear at some point, I think that's all fairly standard.

These hot chocolate stations are full blown installations with special mugs, candy cane stirrers, various jars of sprinkles etc. It'd need constant cleaning and tidying here, someone would put a wet spoon in the fancy jar of hot chocolate powder and then on the tray on day one.

To be fair, I have tea and coffee in canisters, next to the kettle and then mugs in the cupboard above. I reckon I shall start calling it the tea and coffee station.

“Just off to the tea and coffee station darling to make my morning coffee, would you like anything?”

😂

Ours has hot drinks in it all year not all hot chocolate, we have more hot drinks over the winter so gets used by all 5 of us. I put fruit teas, milkshake powder, fruit cordials in it in summer.

My children don’t need encouragement to eat too many sweet things - they do that all by themselves even though they are all kept out of site in the cupboard.