Tis the season to get jolly

I know I've been quiet recently, but I've been busy - whatever the Archdruid may say.  But now that work has stopped for the Christmas period, it's time to fulfil my traditional seasonal role: the muller of the wine.  That's not "mullah", I'd point out, however often Young Keith makes the "joke".

No - I make the mulled wine for the Community.  Every year, the Archdruid asks me to make the mulled wine.  Every year, Mrs Hnaef begs her to withdraw the offer.  Every year the Archdruid responds that she can't remember there having been a problem last year.  Every year Mrs Hnaef responds asking whether the Archdruid can remember anything  about last year at all.  And so it goes.  But yet again, I'm in charge.

Every year, there's a new magic, secret ingredient.  There's the standard magic, secret ingredient, handed down from Beaker generation to Beaker generation (a tiny clue: it rhymes with troot bree-fags), but this year there's another one.  Not the mulled wine spices that Mrs Hnaef bought this year in a desperate attempt to be "more traditional".  Not the 161% proof U.S. Virgin Islands rum which I've been getting through, drop by inflammable drop, over the past 19 years.  No, it's the vanilla-flavoured rum that Mrs Hnaef-in-law made us last year and which I've also added (secretly) to the fruit salad.

It's going to be another great Christmas Eve.  I'm sure of it.