The caroling turned out to be a success. It didn’t rain, enough people came to sing and drown out the tone-deaf Human Encyclopedia, and I had plenty of mulled wine in me to keep me warm and up for anything. If I had sound bites from the night, they would go as follows:

“For five dollars we’ll sing ‘Silent Night’ and for ten we’ll leave you alone and go away.”
“Five golden retrievers!”
“Let’s have some mulled wine first. We’ll sound pretty good after a few mugs of mulled wine… to ourselves, at least.”
“Cinco anillos de oro!”
“Look! I see our next victims!”
“We leave no captives uncaroled.”
“Is there a song you’d like us to sing? We know a lot of songs… and none of them well.”

Though it wasn’t as cold as last year—when my toes were so numb that I thought they’d fallen off—it was still nice to go back indoors after the singing and drown myself in key lime pie and Steph’s mulled wine. I decided then and there that her mulled wine has definitely earned a spot on my list of comfort food.

Also on the list, in no particular order: hot chocolate, rice pudding (not the kind that makes me sick, though), egg drop soup, miso soup, fruit smoothies, bananas, applesauce, bean curd vegetable soup, shrimp with cocktail sauce, New York style cheesecake, custard, sashimi (tuna, albacore, or salmon), fettucini alfredo, string beans, soy beans, gelatin (not Jello) with sweetened fruit, antipasto salad, lychees, mangos with shrimp paste, sauteed mushrooms, raw tomatoes, and New England clam chowder (with extra clams, Old Bay seasoning, and a touch of Tabasco sauce).

Egad. Now I’m hungry.

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