the parable of the chocolate santa

"This article is really about creaitng something from nothing. The process is the same as creating a gourmet meal from leftovers or building a wheelbarrow from scrounged materials." Amy Dacyzyn

It's much to do with thinking outside the box. It's about not wasting your chocolate santas.

Once upon a time there was a family that was in a really terrible car wreck. A year after the wreck, they went back to hospital to give out gifts and just say "thanks." As they were getting ready to leave, the lady in the Ronald McDonald Room handed them a 3.5 foot tall, 35 pound chocolate Santa. That's a lot of chocolate! No flimsy body on this Santa; his sides were 2 inches thick! First reaction was, "No, thanks, we don't have another seat for this hunk-o-candy the size of a small child." But the four children in the family begged and pleaded, and so did the hospital volunteers, and so that is how it happened that the chocolate Santa ended up wrapped and raffled off under the extended family Christmas tree. And that is how the eldest uncle in the family won the raffle and promptly smashed the chocolate santa with a birch log in a effort so grand that the chocolate santa was immediately decapitated and dozens of hands swarmed around him to partake of his chocolatey-goodness. But when the party ended, the then 34 pound santa was left to his own defenses in the grandfather's garage. Unwrapped in the freezing cold, he started to get white patches and the oldest brother threatened to take him into the woods for both target practice and for use as a deer lick. The children in the family continued to break pieces off all week, but still, at the end of the week, there was still 30+ pounds of chocolate santa left. And so it was the frugal mama in the family began to to think about how she could utilize the chocolate santa. Thoughts of late night PMS chocolate binges filled her brain, but she knew better than succumb to that temptation. (And her husband refused to bring the decimated carcas all the way back to North Carolina anyway). So, that frugal mama came up with another strategy. She busted that santa up-yes she did-into 6 ziplogs of 4"X4" chocolate chunks, and she tucked them into a big bag to take home. Now the chocolate santa resides on the top pantry shelf. And the eldest daughter in the family used him for the first time three days ago. She smashed one of the bags of chocolate into little pieces and made the most delightful double-chocolate-chunk cookies the family had ever eaten. The little chocolate shreds that were left over went into some homemade granola. And everyone (except for the legs and feet of the santa, which were left to face the unknown in grandpa's garage) lived happily ever after. And there are still 5 bags left!

And the moral of the story is: use your chocolate santa!!!