You can change your document root pretty easily by following these instructions:
Locate the file called httpd.conf. Mine is located in this directory: /Applications/XAMPP/etc
Find the line that says:
DocumentRoot "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs"
Change the path to where you want your files to live. Use an absolute path from the root directory (i.e. it should start with a / and if you're using Unix/Linux and a \ if you're on Windows).
Still in the httpd.conf file, scroll down a few lines until you see this text:
# This should be changed to whatever you set DocumentRoot to.
and replace the path with whatever you typed in step 3.
This part is important. In order for these changes to take place, you need to restart Apache (otherwise it won't work). Since you're using XAMPP, just use the GUI to do this (click Stop, and then Start next to the Apache label).
Now, you can put your web content in the new directory (i.e. the home folder in your case)
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There are actually two place where where mac os x serves website by default:
/Library/WebServer/Documents --> http://localhost
~/Sites --> http://localhost/~user/