A Hot Chocolate Toast!

 

 

My grandson Mazen created this picture at preschool. Hot chocolate! To me, the drinking of hot chocolate is one of the world’s happiest rituals. I wrote this toast in its honor:

A Hot Chocolate Toast

(You may toast indoors or out.)

To the winter night!

Bold. Cold. Starry. Bright.

We raise our mugs,

and take a sip,

and welcome warmth

up to our lips.

I’ve been making really simple hot chocolate this year by melting chocolate chips or white chocolate chips (or a combination) into very hot milk. You can add some water to the milk if you like.

This is a fun company idea. Folks can make the hot chocolate the strength they prefer. You might offer mint chocolate chips and butterscotch too, maybe even peanut butter chips. Let everyone be creative and make their own special combo.

And don’t forget to say my toast!

A Hot Chocolate Toast is included in June Cotner and Nancy Tupper Ling’s festive anthology, Toasts: The Perfect Words to Celebrate Every Occasion. Toasts is a perfect great gift book, especially for birthdays, weddings, or retirement.

 

 

Toasts! A Book Giveaway

 

I’ll toast to just about anything. I love to celebrate (and I love to raise a glass). When June Cotner and Nancy Tupper Ling put out a call for toasts for their upcoming anthology, I couldn’t resist!

I’m lucky enough to have 14 toasts featured in Toasts: The Perfect Words to Celebrate Every Occasion, published last fall by Viva Editions.

Since  it’s almost April Fools Day, I present to you my toast, “To Foolish Fun!”

Friends, you can fool me once!

Friends, you can fool me twice!

Here’s to lots of foolish fun,

Before this crazy day is done.

 USA Today calls Toasts an “adorable collection of special thoughts.” You’ll find toasts and blessings for weddings, funerals, christenings, retirement, birthdays, graduations, bon voyage, holidays, and plenty of  other occasions.

I was surprised and touched to read my name in the Introduction:

Wouldn’t my British Literature professor at Duke, now gone to the ivory towers in the sky, get a jolt out of that one! I remember her quoting Wordsworth with gusto shortly after returning papers. Mine had a less than stellar grade at the top in a large red letter.

Back to April Fools Day. Promise me you’ll use my toast on April 1. Offer it at breakfast, send it over the office email, put it on your FB page. I’d be delighted, no fooling!

Giveaway: Thanks to Viva Editions for offering Friend for the Ride one copy of Toasts: The Perfect Words to Celebrate Every Occasion. For a chance to win, please enter a comment by April 5. (The comment link is at the bottom). U.S. and Canada only. Thanks!

You’ll want your own copy of Toasts, and the book makes a creative gift, especially for graduations, wedding showers, and birthdays. Click here for the Amazon link.