And you thought all the holiday celebrations were over?
Celebrations and festivities can go right up to January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany (sort of the baptism of Jesus). That's what's behind "The 12 Days of Christmas" (Dec 25 + 12 days = Jan 6). Many Christian countries have nice, quiet, religious activities on Christmas. The real blowout bash with all the gift giving comes on January 6, aka Twelfth Night.
But between now and then, how about a little wassailing? It comes from the apple country of England - Dorset, Gloucestershire, and those parts - where as far as I can tell it celebrated the change of the year by **94** the season's first hard cider. It also gives us the "Here We Come a-Wassailing" carol, which is just one of many different wassail songs. I'm partial to the Gloucestershire Wassail, since it encourages you to make your own verses **94** to the health and prosperity of your companions in the coming year, to wit:
Chorus:
Wassail, wassail, all over the town!
Our toast it is white, and our ale it is brown.
Our bowl it is made from the white maple tree,
And with our wassail, we'll drink unto thee!
Here's to RandomX, and to both her tits!
May she always have nice clothing that fits.
Even to the undies that we will not see,
Now with our wassail, we'll drink unto thee!
(you get the idea...)
There are as many recipes for wassail as there are versions of wassail songs. Many call for making them with a cider base, but as far as I'm concerned, that's just mulled cider. Nothing special at all. I recommend using the same standard mulling spices, but instead putting them into a nice English brown ale. If you're really adventurous, you can bake apples (tiny ones!) with brown sugar and float them in the wassail. There are plenty of recipes to be found online; don't make me have to do everything for you! Though except for the eggs, I think Alton Brown's recipe from "Good Eats: Twas' The Night Before Good Eats" on The Food Network is the one I would most like to try....