Christmas Reflection, With Adult Beverage: ChristMouse Eggnog

Actual Eggnog Mouse Not Pictured: Requiescat In Pace.This is the story of how a mouse died in a bowl of eggnog.  For those who like to skip the talky-bits and cut to the chase, you want to skip down five paragraphs.

When the world was younger and my sister had just married a Yankee and was in school in Champaign-Urbana in the middle of freaking Illinois, my brother and parents and I came to have Christmas at their apartment.

When you come from New Orleans, a blanket of white snow is the most magical, mythical thing there is or could be.  We crowded into their tiny apartment, and crowded at the window to watch the snowfall, and cooked and cleaned up after ourselves all Christmas Eve.  (If you're having trouble in your relationships, take this tip: cook and clean up after yourself and don't leave it for others as you go.  You'd be surprised.  I might even take my own advice.)

We made eggnog.  Good strong stuff with heavy doses of rum.  We mixed it in a bowl and meant to set it to chill in the refrigerator while we went to church.

But what with the Christmas turkey and the various dishes we'd prepared against the blessed morrow, there was no room in the inn.  The snowfall had let up, and so with the wild joy of Christmas we set the bowl of eggnog out in the snow to chill beneath a cold starry night.  There might even have been a bush of red holly nearby: my memory is treacherous in that regard.

And so to church to celebrate the birth of hope to a people yet unborn.

And then home, where we eagerly anticipated our eggnog toast to one another and to the messiah and the blessed turning of light to dark.

But there was a hitch.

A mouse, who evidently died happily doing the backstroke in a mixture of sugar, milk, and 80-proof spirits, was adding his flavor to our Christmas drink. 

My brother-in-law brought him in with knitted brows, laid the steel bowl on the table, and we stood around as though at a funeral. 

Whether it was the wee timorous beastie or the drink we were mourning, I'm not sure.  It can be tough to find an open liquor store on Christmas Eve in Central Illinois, whatever Dan Fogelberg may say, or so we were all thinking.  But we also thought of the mouse, and whether it had family at home waiting up for it, and what it means to cash in your mouse-chips on Christmas Eve.

Grave Detail was assigned to my brother-in-law and myself.  I remember our crunching feet in the snow.  I remember his unceremonious committal of both eggnog and mouse.  I remember standing there watching as the glistening drops with their mouse-body disappeared into the night.  I remember the sound of it all hitting the snow. 

If this Christmas finds you unsure of your faith, if it finds you unable to connect emotionally with the cosmic redemption, if the salvation from Rome and Sin and Hell leaves you unmoved, cast your eyes about you.

With so much life and death, something of God is crackling in the cold.

And have one on me.

Otter's ChristMouse Eggnog (In Memoriam):

In a saucepan, combine 1/2 cup sugar, three cups of milk and a cup of half-and-half. 

Cook over a medium heat until it bubbles around the edges.

Take about a cup of it and pour it slowly, while mixing, into a bowl with 5 slightly beaten egg yolks.

Once it's mixed, pour it back in the saucepan.

Cook about five minutes or a little more, until it coats a metal spoon.

Put the saucepan in the sink, or in a beaker stuck in iced water to cool it rapidly for about two minutes.  Stir constantly.

Stir in a half cup of bourbon and three or four tablespoons of creme de menthe.  (If you do not have this wondrous liqueur in your cabinet, you need it for your children's vanilla ice cream.)

Cover (!) and chill for four hours.

Beat senseless (with an electric mixer) a half cup of whipping cream until peaks form.

Fold it into the chilled eggnog.

Ladle it into mugs.

Next week: Spiced Wine and the Mystery of Redemption.

Comments

[Victoria]

We put our gumbo out in the snow. But we put a lid on it.