Banana Split Family Night

We love having family “date” nights and have been making a point to prioritize it even when life gets busy. Sometimes we keep it simple and other nights I like to go all out! Tonight we stayed home and went all out on a banana split night self-serve bar and oh my goodness was it fun! It was a blast seeing how everyone’s “split” turned out so different — my personal favorite the layered banana split in a cup! We have pretty much every kind of banana split covered in this post!

We put out bowls full of toppings, then set out disposable bowls and cups so everyone could make their own banana split whatever way they wanted. My daughter LOVED the chocolate chips, I’m a huge fan of mini marshmallows, and the whipped cream and chocolate syrup were also huge hits!

Once our self-serve bar was ready, I stared out the party by making a layered banana split in a cup:

Layered Banana Splits in a Cup!

Layer 1 — Ice Cream

Layer 2 — Bananas

Layer 3 — Chocolate Chips and Marshmallows

Layer 4 — Whipped Cream

Layer 5 — Garnish with Any or All of the Following:

• The clique cherry on top
• A chocolate square or chocolate chips
• Mini marshmallows
• Chocolate syrup drizzled on top

Feel free to switch up the order or add extra layers of whatever your family has in the pantry, like graham cracker crumbles!

I also imagine these would make awesome to-go treats. Make them up, throw them in a really cold ice chest and head out to a park, lake, or even just the backyard! Dixie coffee cups would be perfect for this, since they have lids!

Next up, we have mini cups — perfect for little ones:

Mini Cups

Make your own night means everyone gets in on the action, even our little toddler (with a little help of course). We geared hers more finger friendly with bananas, marshmallows and chocolate chips and kept the ice cream and whipped cream for another time (maybe when we’re outside near a house for easier clean up). Family night is mom’s night off too! So nothing too messy that I’m going to have to stay up all night cleaning!

I, also, didn’t want my toddler to be up all night so I let her make a “mini-banana-split” in an adorable mini cup (we used leftover 2 ounce Dixie cups from our building party last week and they were perfect for this)! She LOVED it and didn’t even notice hers was smaller. I love how she kept sneaking bites as she made hers!

Banana Split Self-Serve Bites

While my daughter was making her mini dessert in a cup I tried out these little self-serve bites and they may be my new favorite snack! They also make a super gourmet dessert to serve when friends come over — we will definitely be making this again!

And then of course there’s always the good old fashion banana split in a bowl…

…but we accidentally forgot the banana. Thankfully, it was still delicious!

Once our treats were ready, we curled up on the couch with a movie. We’ve rated this family night an A+ and it will definitely be happening again. The amount of laughter, smiles and fun we had can’t even be measured into a post.

Super glad Dixie made this family night possible by encouraging us to “be more here” with our kids! We used their paper products at dinner so we could spend less time cleaning up dinner and more time on our banana split bar and hanging out as a family — having fun and making memories!

What are some of your favorite ways to spend family night?

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