Twas the Day After Christmas...

 

(Life Magazine Photo) (snow blizzard images)

And all through the land, snow pummeled the East Coast eight to 12 inches most of the day.

You made hot chocolate and sprayed whipped cream, while pondering over the pile of Christmas gifts you couldn't drive to the mall and return right away.  

So you poured a second cup of hot chocolate, dust off the cobwebs from your treasured boxed games, and dug out Monopoly, Scrabble and Clue from your basement to play.

 (Vintage Monopoly)

Sure, the kids whined and the husband too when enforcing the "no video game/no Web on snow days" rules, but your goal is to bring the family together and reaping big rewards, because this special snow day after Christmas surprised you and came true after all.  

Enjoy the blizzard snow storm!

Nix the gourmet hot chocolate packets.  Here are some delicious snow day cocoa recipes ... don't forget the whipped cream.

(allrecipes.com)

Creamy Hot Cocoa

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/3 cup boiling water
• 3 1/2 cups milk
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup half-and-half cream

Directions

1. Combine the cocoa, sugar and pinch of salt in a saucepan. Blend in the boiling water. Bring this mixture to an easy boil while you stir. Simmer and stir for about 2 minutes. Watch that it doesn't scorch. Stir in 3 1/2 cups of milk and heat until very hot, but do not boil! Remove from heat and add vanilla. Divide between 4 mugs. Add the cream to the mugs of cocoa to cool it to drinking temperature.

 (allrecipes.com)

Candy Cane Hot Chocolate

Ingredients

• 4 cups milk
• 3 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 4 peppermint candy canes, crushed
• 1 cup whipped cream
• 4 small peppermint candy canes

Directions

1. In a saucepan, heat milk until hot, but not boiling. Whisk in the chocolate and the crushed peppermint candies until melted and smooth. Pour hot cocoa into four mugs, and garnish with whipped cream. Serve each with a candy cane stirring stick.

 Perhaps you want to mix it up and make a Chai Tea.  Here's a great recipe from Simply Recipes.com

 Chai Tea

Spice ingredients for one pot of tea:
1/2 of a star anise star
10-12 whole cloves
6-7 whole allspice
1 heaping teaspoon of cinnamon bark (or 2 short sticks)
6-7 whole white peppercorns
1 cardamon pod opened to the seeds (not pictured)

Other ingredients:
1 cup water
4-6 cups whole milk
2 heaping tablespoons of a high quality full-bodied broad-leaf black tea (Ceylon, or English Breakfast if a broad-leaf Ceylon is not available)
Sugar

Method

1 In a 2-qt saucepan, add spices to 1 cup of water. Bring to a boil; remove from heat; let steep for 5-20 minutes, depending on how strong a spice flavor you want.
2 Add 4-6 cups of whole milk to the water and spices. If you don't have whole milk, you can also use non-fat or low-fat milk, just add some cream to it, a few tablespoons. Bring the milk and spice mixture just to a boil and remove from heat.
3 Add the tea to the milk and let steep for 5 to 10 minutes to taste. (Option at this point - reheat to a simmer and remove from heat.) You can add sugar at this point, or serve without sugar and let people put the amount of sugar in they want. Traditionally, sugar is added before serving.
4 Strain into a pot. Serve. Add sugar to taste.