Let the festivities begin!

Hello everybody, and welcome to this week's post! I hope you've all been enjoying the Christmas festivities, and that you're all at least (and I say at least because I have to add mince pies to my tally) 7 advent calendar chocolates heavier than last week. (And brandy cream and spiced ginger biscuits and chocolate truffles and lebekuchen - Google them and get to the nearest Lidl immediately, you won't be sorry).

So as you can tell, I have certainly been delighting in what December has to offer, in food as well as in spirit! I've yet to Christmas-ify the house yet, since I've been very busy, and that's what this blog post is about. Christmas brings many joys, and in the life of a crafter, along with all this joy comes Christmas Fairs. Not to be mistaken, Christmas Fairs bring a hearty amount of joy themselves, and really help to get me into the Christmas spirit - the trouble comes with getting ready for said fairs. The lead up to any show or fair can be said to be stressful at the very least (this stress needs a high dosage of brandy cream and mince pies to cure, trust me) and this time for me, it has required an extra dollop of preparation since I've been designing (and packaging and pricing and ribboning) a brand new product. Well, sort of, it's more like an upgrade to an already existing product.

So let me ask you this - do you like hot chocolate? People like me will be sighing a content 'yessss' as they sip their chocolatey beverage and come away with a foamy cream moustache. Those of you who are saying 'oh, no, they're too ______ for me,' with words like sweet or heavy or creamy to fill that blank space, let me ask you a further probing and hard to answer directly question... how do you know? Have you tried aaaaaall the hot chocolates? Have you tried a hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream? With minstrels melted in the bottom? With chocolate sprinkles on top? Yes? Well I suppose I'll let you off then. However, I am (obviously) a big fan, and one of my favourite Wintery treats is to be cosy and warm with a whipped-cream-piled-high-chocolate-sprinkles-and-cinnamon hot chocolate nestled in my hands, slippers on, feet up, blanket tucked in nicely. As this is my first Christmas Fair to date, I realised a month or so ago that although my puffins are lovely and cute and suitable Christmas gifts for some, the sea birds faces might remind some people too much of Summer. As I talked about this a little in last week's post, I won't dwell too much on this, but I figured that I should make some of the existing products more festive, and maybe even create a new product altogether.

And so was Hodgeheg's Hot Chocolate born. I have created for you the perfect hot chocolate ingredient package! Unfortunately, for health and safety reasons, I was not able to include a mountain of whipped cream or a hefty dollop of brandy cream, these are ingredients you will have to supply yourself. Fear not though, because on almost every other count, I have you covered!

My perfect hot chocolate includes marshmallows, cream (of either the brandy or whipped variety, that's personal preference, of course), an adorable mug and a delicious and festive snack to dip into it. And so that's what I've included! (Apart from the cream.) Now, again, you'll have to provide the milk/water part of the drink, since as far as I'm aware, I can't supply those things legally if I want them to still be delicious, but as some people prefer water and others prefer milk, it's probably best that these things are made your way to your taste anyway. So here's how I would make the perfect hot choccie:

1. Heat up your milk or water, using whichever method you prefer (I would usually prefer microwaving my milk but since I have recently moved house and don't yet have a microwave, to the stove I go! Watch out for the milk sticking to the pan though - my partner hates it when I burn out his pans with hot milk) and pour it into your lovely Puffin Prints mug, whichever pal you chose to help you with your hot chocolate needs!

2. Retrieve hot choc sachet, empty contents into mug and stir until super chocolatey smells emerge and you float to a chocolate heaven.

3. Pop in some fluffy marshmallows to start the melting process - by the time you sit down to enjoy your beverage, they should be squishy and delishy. (Not a word? But it rhymes!)

4. Pile high with cream of choice. (Extra points for pretty swirly-ness.)

5. Dip in spiced ginger biscuit, maybe balance it in the cream if you're a pro like me.

6. Sit somewhere very cosy, preferably with your feet up and blanket on, and enjoy drinking Christmas with some spiced ginger bics.

7. Come and visit me at the Bulkeley Christmas Fair this weekend in Beaumaris to purchase more of my magical hot chocolate happiness!

(Not actually in a Puffin Prints mug since mine had already been used for a panad - comment below for bonus points if you know what a panad is!)

Thanks for reading everyone, and seriously, even if you can't come visit me at the fair, put your feet up and have a hot choc - you'll thank me for it!

Catch you next time, with updates and pictures of the fair,

Rachel x p.s. sorry this week's post was a little bit late - I really have been so very busy! Please forgive me <3