I saw this Clorox contest over at Tatertots & Jello and instantly started cracking up as I remembered one of the messiest Christmases my family has ever had.

Every Christmas Eve my mom and dad make this awesome buffet of appetizers and invite my grandma, aunt, and cousins over. About 5 years ago my mom bought a chocolate fountain to add to the spread, along with all sorts of great things to dip in it - marshmallows, strawberries, the works.

After preparing the entire buffet which covered our entire kitchen peninsula, dressed in our Christmas finest, it was time to get out the chocolate fountain.

I don't know how many chocolate fountains you've been around but the way they work is you pour melted chocolate into the base of the fountain, it gets sucked in through an opening that brings it up the inside of the fountain and out to the top where it cascades majestically down in all of its chocolate-y glory.

The key to a successful chocolate fountain is to make sure all the chocolate poured into the fountain is completely melted.

My dad failed to read this part of the directions.

He poured in partially melted chocolate chips. Immediately the fountain went to work sucking the chocolate in through the opening and out through the top. It didn't exactly pour over very smoothly, it was kind of gloppy but with a little bit more chocolate it would work perfectly.

Picture my dad shoving chocolate into the opening when all of a sudden a partially melted chocolate chip got sucked into the opening.

At that very moment, everything went into slow motion. The chocolate chip got wedged inside the motor that carried the chocolate up through the fountain. The top part of the fountain started rocking back and forth (a key detail I have forgotten to mention is that the fountain is in 2 parts, the base and the actual 3 tier fountain just set onto the middle of the base).

Within about 3 seconds the top section of the fountain lifted off of the base, spinning into the air, splattering chocolate over everything in a 10 foot radius.

Did I mention my parents have an open concept living space? The kitchen peninsula divides the kitchen from the living room. So when the chocolate splattered it went all over the buffet of appetizers, my whole family who was standing around spectating the new chocolate fountain, our Christmas tree, the walls, the carpet, everything.

Our first instinct was to scream because what else do you do when chocolate is flying everywhere? After my dad threw himself on top of the fountain and yanked the plug from the wall we all just kind of stood there...staring at one another.

I looked over my mom, who in a panic fled to the adjacent dining room to take cover from the flying chocolate, and started to chuckle.

I mean this was funny.

For a brief moment, my mom wanted to laugh with me. She tried to smile but she had just spent 6 hours preparing a feast for 15 people and it was now covered in chocolate. The tears started to fall.

It couldn't get much worse.

Bing bong!

The doorbell rang no sooner than the chocolate had landed. My aunt and cousins were at the door ready to celebrate. Imagine trying to tell your guests that they couldn't come in because we were trying to contain a chocolate explosion.

Thankfully they joined in and helped us clean up. After we calmed down and saw how absolutely hilarious this all was, it didn't take long for us to get on with the merrymaking.


To this day we still find small, stray pieces of hardened chocolate on our artificial Christmas tree.

It's stories like these that make me love my family and I'm so thankful for that darn chocolate fountain.