Vanilla Bean Eggnog

When the kids were little I was sort of panicky about holiday traditions. “Quick! We have kids now! We have the make this time of year the most freaking amazing, absolutely epic, filled with candy canes and gratitude and making sure they don’t turn out to be entitled jerks all with a smile on our face holiday season!!” I sound fun, right?

While showering (which is when I get the chance to do all my deep thinking) I started to make the mental list in my head of all the fun things I wanted us to do this season. And then it hit me. There was never really a need to force the traditions and holiday cheer. The tree will be decorated, we’ll have many cups of hot chocolate, I’m sure we’ll see some Christmas lights, we’ll open our stockings just as we’ve done for the past 3 years, I’ll have a tea party for my nieces (and nephews if they’re brave enough to join us) we’ll watch my niece dance in the Nutcracker, we’ll watch Home Alone (already done!) and Elf and we’ll eat lots of cookies.

Without my even realizing it our family has our traditions. They may be a bit wonky and they don’t necessarily happen every year and there are some that I’d rather we not repeat. But in spite of my frazzled “let’s force the kids to love this freaking season otherwise I’m going to feel like a complete failure as a parent!” which as you can imagine doesn’t bring joy to any of us, we love this time of year and we do it all right.

I don’t think there is any one way to avoid the frenzy at some point or another in a month where we have something “festive” planned nearly everyday but I’ve learned to not force the joy and just feel it instead.

Let’s put this Eggnog into the category of sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t but every year it does make an appearance I’m so glad it did. It is the quintessential holiday party punch bowl cocktail and is fun to have around for those late night present wrapping sessions. Traditionally it’s made “adult” with bourbon but you know what? I’m partial to rum. It is absolutely indulgent and for me a little goes a long way but it is just the sort of thing that reminds me that this time of year is special and can be celebrated in simple ways such as sip after sip of creamy, vanilla-flecked and nutmeg topped Eggnog.

Get the recipe for this cocktail and my homemade Ginger Beer over at Live.Love.Lux. by Electrolux. Sara (SproutedKitchen.com) and I have been building up quite a delicious database of recipes over there so take some time and check them out.