Whilest sipping hot chocolate

All throughout my growing up years, I loved the coming of winter for two reasons and two reasons only—packable snow for snow forts and sledding and rich, steaming hot chocolate! My brother and I would frolic out in the snow throwing snowballs, running around, and building snow forts. When we were finally persuaded to come inside (mainly because our extremities were going numb), we stripped off our abundant, sopping layers, blew our cold, red noses and perched ourselves at the counter while Mom warmed up water for hot chocolate.

And it couldn’t be just any hot chocolate; we had to make it our special way: Start out with hot water and add 3-4 spoonfuls of evaporated milk. Whisk until it’s dissolved. Then add 4 heaping spoonfuls of Nestle hot chocolate (from a huge container that looked like this).Whisk completely. For the pièce de résistance, add a generous dash of French vanilla coffee creamer! (I was especially generous with my portion because I preferred to have hot vanilla more than hot chocolate! *laughs*) It was soooo good that we would ignore the scalding temperature just to sip it and taste it that much faster.

My brother and I wouldn’t just drink it after playing in the snow either! It was a breakfast thing too! I’d trudge down the cold stairs in my fluffy slippers and fuzzy robe with my hands plunged deeply into the pockets, shuffle to the pantry, snatch the Nestle hot chocolate and other supplies, warm up my water, and plop heavily onto the stool at the counter to mix and then gratefully sip my hot chocolate. It was one part of my morning that I always enjoyed.

As I sit here at my desk in my chilly room, I’m sipping, of all things, my Nestle hot chocolate (not so doctored up though). All of these memories are in the forefront of my mind. Oh, nostalgia. That’s the point of brands like Nestle though. Their packages and containers contain images of happy families and sweet memories—ice skating, playing in the snow, and/or a snuggly cottage with smoke drifting from the chimney (like in the picture below)—in order to make us long for the past and buy the brand because it evoked such memories (and because it tastes good!).

 

Nostalgia is a bittersweet part of us that can’t be ignored, especially in college. I, for one, had a very difficult time freshmen year adjusting to being away from home. I was incredibly homesick and to be honest, I cried almost every Sunday because I missed being home and I missed my church. Owning and using brands that I recognized from home was a salve to my weary heart. Brands like Nestle hot chocolate, Cheerios, Minute Maid Orange Juice, and Snuggle dryer sheets (it smells like home!) helped remind me of home and brought me comfort. I know in the Bible it says the old has gone and the new has come—2 Corinthians 5:17—though not in the same context as this and that it’s healthy for a man to leave his family and be united with his wife—Genesis 2:24 and Mark 10:7—or in this case for a young adult to leave home and head to college, but I don’t think it’s wrong or a sin to want to keep some connections with the past. They remind us of our families, our memories, and where we come from. God can use them to bring us comfort. There is a line between longing for the past (in an unhealthy way) and looking back and saying “that was amazing!”, but God gave us our past and memories for a reason.

So, when we think of those good old days, instead of longing for what was, let’s learn to say “THANK YOU!!!” to the Creator of those days and of those to come.