In case you missed it, X-E Advent Calendar alum "Waiterbot" has taken his act to YouTube in a new series of video blogs. Volume 1 includes his thoughts on the secularization of Christmas, while Volume 2 is in response to the pitiful amount of feedback he received on Volume 1.
Couldn't stop myself from picking up a carton of Southern Comfort's eggnog, partly because it included a recipe to use the titular liquor instead of the more traditional brandy. I tried alcoholic eggnog for the first time last Christmas, with brandy, and was surprised to find that I'd wasted so many years of being of legal drinking age under the false assumption that eggnog is disgusting. It's not! It's good! I'm weird when it comes to any variety of dairy liquid, but eggnog is proof that enough sugar can kill any bad feelings.
The brandy, on the other hand, was a tougher sell. I'm more experienced with SoCo, as it's one of the typical liquors for people who can't drink like real men. Though the thought of Southern Comfort in eggnog didn't sound too copasetic at first, I'm happy to report that the end result is perfectly edible.
I've spent the past fifteen years really, really wanting to like eggnog, for a reason detailed in this ancient X-E article. Beyond the super fast snow sleds and sassy squirrels that helped make National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation one of my favorite holiday movies ever, there was something else: Moose mugs.
At various points in the film, the characters ladle into a gigantic bowl full of eggnog, carefully pouring the pancake mix into the most beautiful, absurd and wonderful glass moose mugs I've ever laid eyes on. These mugs were positively mesmerizing, and I spent years trying to find them, refusing the accept that they were mere movie props unavailable to the unwashed masses.
The movie review I wrote back in 2000 got a surprising amount of traction, and weeks after it was published, I got an e-mail from the guy who runs Canadian Moose -- a site that sells laboriously well-produced replicas of the holy mugs seen in Christmas Vacation. After several years of e-mail tag, he sent me a pair and helped me complete the most important mission of my entire life.
Beautiful, ain't she? The mugs are really expensive, but totally worth the money in every way possible. Though several other companies have since debuted their own version of the moose mug, these are so much nicer and definitely more true to the film. With large antler handles and cute moosey facial features, I'm not ashamed to admit that they're on constant display atop the little glass shelf beside my television, only being used as actual glassware when eggnog is in season. Which, fortunately, is right now.
Adding SoCo instead of brandy didn't make much of a difference, because eggnog is such an enveloping force that I'm pretty sure you could add petroleum without altering the flavor much. Sprinkle on a little cinnamon or nutmeg, and you've got yourself the only drink in the entire world deserving of being sipped out of a priceless Christmas Vacation moose mug.
If you feel like giving the Southern Comfort version a whirl, it's pretty simple: Four parts eggnog for every one part SoCo.
It's pretty incredible that we can now purchase the moose mugs from Christmas Vacation, the leg lamp from A Christmas Story, AND the sad little tree from A Charlie Brown Christmas. Now if only Waldbaum's would start stocking the Grinch's six-legged racks of lamb in the meat section, we'd be totally and forever set.
Happy SNT!
Posted by Matt on 11/10/2007. E-mail me!
Chestnuts roasted by 
I couldn’t quite bring myself to watch the Grinch yet. I have it on an old tape of several Christmas specials, including among other things two Charlie Browns, Rudolph, and Garfield, complete with commercials from about 1992. I adore that tape, but it just felt too early to bring it out.
I did, however, watch Eight Crazy Nights and have a nice cup of cocoa. I had no marshmallows so I added a cinnamon stick instead, and it turned out so much more delicious than I ever expected.