Despite COVID, RSV, and Influenza we are carefully trying to get back to a more social Christmas (Holiday) season this year. Along with having our kids and grandkids nearby we are fortunate enough to be part of a few groups of wonderful people and we have concluded or at least planned get togethers with most everyone. Last night (December 10, 2022) we hosted a group of old church friends – our friendships are old, not the people (necessarily) – and we will be having people from the neighborhood over next weekend.
Our Daughter-In-Law (DIL) Sarah crafted a tasty punch for us all on our post-Thanksgiving get together a few weeks ago. I loved it and we thought it would be great for the two gatherings at our house.
My goals were for it to be red, easy to prepare, work as alcoholic or not, and tasty. The punch gets its red from cranberry juice and pomegranate juice along with cranberries and pomegranate seeds garnish. This Christmas Punch recipe from Sugar And Soul looked to fill all the needs.
With just a minimum of measuring and thinly slicing one orange it was coming together. I got this far a couple of hours before the Freys and McDs would arrive. I held off on adding the bubbly Sprite until just before serving and the rum would be a glass-by-glass decision. Ideally the fruits would have gone in the pitcher, but there wasn’t enough room; so I adjusted. It all went into the refrigerator until people came.
We originally planned on using our Christmas wine glasses but decided to use them for wine at dinner so we pulled out our OLD trusty cocktail glasses.
We got these for our wedding in 1976. Aren’t they a gas!
Mark and Christie brought DELICIOUS appetizers while Dianne and Herb brought an apple bundt cake (Sorry I was too busy having fun to grab pictures of all that).
Once they arrived, I poured the Sprite into the punch, added ice, fruit and a spear of rosemary to each glass and let people decide if they wanted rum or not.
Halfway through my first glass I realized I didn’t get a picture of the finished product! So I added back a dash of punch and snapped away.
This recipe is so simple to prepare and has a big payoff. I’m looking forward to serving it at our neighborhood dessert next weekend. Our neighbors Mary Ann and Jay have a punch bowl; I hope I can borrow it. Then everything but the rum and sprig of rosemary can go into the bowl.
Yum, ★★★★ 4 Stars.
While on the subject of Christmas and the Holidays I have a couple of recommendations. I read Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol almost every year. Click here to see my Christmas Carol posts. It is a fantastic book that I cannot recommend highly enough. It can be read on many levels: Hero journey, restoration of a man, or just a fun narrative. You can wonder about the problem of the passage of time, or just enjoy the story. It is short and easy to read. The novel has 5 staves – chapters – which makes it perfect for reading out loud with the family the five nights before Christmas.
Not into reading; watch the 1984 movie with George C. Scott as Scrooge. I think it is the best adaptation of the book. It’s usually on TV here in the states in the run up to Christmas.
The last couple of years I’ve watched “Last Christmas”. It’s a romantic story about a woman having a hard time getting restarted in her life after a big health problem. She meets a man, falls in love and well… you have to watch. The female lead, Kate, is played by Emilia Clarke who – people tell me – flew around on dragons in Game of Thrones. The male lead is played by Henry Golding who was the male lead in Crazy Rich Asians. Finally, Kate’s boss at the shop is Michelle Yeoh who was the lead in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and was Henry Golding’s mom in Crazy Rich Asians.
