Can We Talk 2

Mexican Hot Chocolate

         I went to a church Christmas dinner tonight. Now that I'm retired I can do that. I took my dad, too. They served ham and turkey and lots of sides. We have a ministry to the housing complex near us. The parents were invited to this dinner, and an unrehearsed play took place afterwards.

         The play was cute. Someone read the very serious Christmas story, while two adults helped the kids enter at the right time. They had some simple costumes and some toy sheep to carry. They had studied the story for two weeks previous, but had not assigned parts or walked through any of it. This was to keep it stress free. Whatever happens, happens, like that night in Bethlehem: it just happened. Well, most kids did well, standing at the right place or kneeling by the manger. The two young sheep (I guess they were sheep. They had sheeplike skirts and floppy ears, like a dog's ears.) hopped all over the place and examined the Christmas tree. At one time, one of them was hanging off the handrail with her feet on the wall. The narrator worked that into the summation about that night in Bethlehem with "sheep running all over the place". (My dad wondered if his great granddaughter was up there in a sheep outfit.) We sang carols with them at various points in the story.

         A lot of the kids were Hispanic. One of the fathers brought us Mexican hot chocolate in a crock pot. Oh my, how good was that. I figured it would have red pepper or something spicy. But it was delicious and very thick. Not diet food. So I had to look it up. The Barefoot Contessa has a stove top version that involves cayenne and sounds simple. I want to take a larger batch to an outing, so I looked up the crock pot version. It calls for chili powder instead of cayenne. It also requires cocoa as well as bittersweet chocolate, chopped, and condensed milk instead of brown sugar. I have to try this.

         Apparently, the unrehearsed play is a new fad. Not only did my family dream it up for us, my brother's neighborhood did it in another city for their annual children's party. They were assigned roles, but had no rehearsal or costumes. This one at the church has been done for several years, but I was always working and didn't see it. A good fad. Especially, with all that food and chocolate.