What are the 12 days of Christmas? When do they start? Do they end with Christmas? Do they start with Christmas? Do they exist solely for that song? Why do they include so many farm birds? Can anyone remember all the lyrics? All I know is there was no alcohol in the 12 Days song, which means I am not interested in those days. I’ll tell you what days I am down with, though, the 9 Days of Boozemas. This is a series of days straddling Christmas, starting on the last day you work and ending on the day before you start work again (this year for me, it was Dec 22 to Dec 30).
I took it upon myself to fill my days with festive, winter, or just downright delicious drinks. The list goes as follows:

Day 1: Mulled Wine – made from scratch, of course, for ultimate authenticity. I used a Jamie Oliver recipe, because as everyone knows he was present in the manger. I think he came in between the Wisemen and Santa Claus. Note: the only thing worse than red wine teeth is mulled red wine teeth.

Day 2: Port – why not go from one sickly sweet wine to another? For some reason sweet equates warm to me and on a cold winter’s night, sweet and warm is nothing to sneeze at.

Day 3: Sherry – who can say no to a drink that has its own specialty glass?

Day 4: White wine – keeping it simple, elegant, sophisticated. When celebrating the holidays with family and taking on a “drinking everyday” project such as I have, you want to make sure that it doesn’t look like you’re getting blitzed every night. Throw in a basic white wine every once and a while to ensure that your family doesn’t surreptitiously start leaving the TV on A&E’s Intervention.

Day 5: Eggnog – classic! If you can believe it this was my first foray into egg-based beverages. I mentioned in a letter to my grandma that I wanted to try the ‘nog this year and to my surprise my water-after-one-glass-of-white mum had a favourite recipe she wanted me to try! Again, made from scratch (no carton bevies this Boozemas), the drink lived up to the hype.

Day 6: Bailey’s hot chocolate – a favourite among teens trying to sneaky and drinky in the presence of their parents, this innocent looking drink was delicious and warmed the bones!

Day 7:  Beer – a week of drinking steadily and I got a little lazy. An evening of beer and Wii won out over creativity. Note: The only thing that makes me worse at Mario Kart is a beer with Mario Kart.

Day 8: White Russian – warm? No. Festive? No. Winter drink? Maybe…Russia is cold and wintry like, all the time, right? Despite a brief discussion about the possibility, we did not go bowling after consuming these drinks, but I totally would have.

Day 9: Hot toddy – I’ve heard this drink’s name thrown around a lot in the winter but I’d never had it. If I had to guess what a hot toddy was I would have said some kind of sickly sweet drink (what I imagine Harry Potter’s butterbeer to taste like). I was wrong. It tasted a bit like medicine, which explains why so many people think it is a medicinal drink. Cinnamon, lemon, honey, rum/whisky/bourbon, and just-off-the-boil water; tasted a bit like rummy NeoCitrin.

That wraps up Boozemas 2012. I’ve definitely picked out some favourites from this menu and am already looking into some new ones for next year. The glory of Boozemas is that its length changes every year and is different for every participant. It’s good to have a library of drinks to choose from; next year will see me drinking hot buttered rum, spiked apple cider, and something called a Frostini. Old favourites and new suggestions welcome.