Galentine’s Bash 2020: Donut and Hot Chocolate Bar

I adore Valentine’s Day! It is such a sweet occasion. The pinks and reds, the sprinkled goodies, and the LOVE! Not just romantic love, but the love one another kind of love. The love of Christ! My girls have been lavishly blessed by precious friendships in our small group, and Valentine’s Day seems the perfect opportunity to celebrate that Christian sisterhood with a Galentine’s Bash!

After last year’s cookie and hot chocolate bar was a success, Country Girl and I decided to do something along those lines again this year, but with a new twist. With a little thought, we decided on a DONUT and HOT CHOCOLATE BAR! It was so much fun, and we will definitely be doing it again!

The great thing about this party is you can bake from scratch if you want, or you can purchase everything! Now I love my donut pan, but for this party we bought donuts from Walmart’s bakery and they were delicious! Not exactly Krispy Kreme, but as close as you can get. I was pretty impressed.

There is just something so utterly awesome about a platter stacked full of donuts, isn’t there?! And how cute are those plates and napkins? I have to confess, I had napkins leftover from last year that I was planning to use until I spotted these at Target. Can you blame me? I mean, they have Valentine donuts on them! And they were big enough to hold the girls’ donut and toppings to take to the table for decorating.

In addition to the donuts, the girls could choose from an assortment of sprinkles, m&m’s, red hots, non perils, X&O’s, and candy hearts. I put out little pink cups to hold their selections. They could also choose between strawberry or cherry icing, already portioned in small cupcake cups for easy pickup. The ceramic bird basket is empty in this photo but held plastic knives for spreading their icing.

Below you can see a sample plate with all the components, and some additional photos of some of the girls’ decorated donuts. The little girls were so cute showing me their donuts with such enthusiasm.

This party spread was dripping in PINK!

Behind the donut bar was the hot chocolate bar!

I got the hot chocolate bunting banner off the dollar isle at Target last year. The sign was a free download from a year or two ago and, for the life of me, I honestly can not remember where I got it from. It says, “All We Need is LOVE and Hot Chocolate”. Too cute!

I used to transfer all the toppings from their package containers into glass or ceramic serving containers. No more! Now I just remove the package labels and add scrapbook paper to the store containers. For the items that come in bags, I just pour those into pretty teacups.

Hot chocolate toppings included whipped cream, amaretto creamer, strawberry syrup, candy hearts, white chocolate chips, marshmallows, and sprinkles!

Iced donuts and fluffed up hot chocolate can’t be beat for a girls’ party!

After some snacking and giggling, we moved on to crafting Valentine bookmarks. The girls each made one for themselves and one for our elderly friends at a local assisted living home. I pre-cut scrapbook paper in assorted Valentiney patterns and spray mounted them on card stock. I also went ahead and punched holes in them and cut ribbon for the tassel ties. My daughter then went to work arranging the ribbons, scissors, washi tape, stickers, flowers, and stamps on plates.

Here are the ones we’ll deliver to the assisted living friends this week. They stamped a Bible verse on the backs and then decorated the fronts. I forgot to get a photo of the backs. I thought they did a really sweet job making them special for the ladies.

The girls all exchanged Valentine cards and treats at the end of the party. Country Girl and I found these adorable little donut plates at Dollar Tree for her to pass out to all the girls. We thought these were suitable for all the girls even though their ages span from 4 to 18, and of course, they went along with our donut theme. I took this photo before Country Girl wrote the names on the tags.

I wish I could show you pictures of all the girls at the party because I have some really cute photos of them all, but I don’t post those here. And, sadly, some of our girls are now in college and can no longer attend, but we have a new crop of little girls coming up and joining the fun! I told my husband that when the last of those girls are grown and gone, I’ll probably just start inviting the little girls from the neighborhood!