Copyright © 2004 by Ashleen O’Gaea
Start with one 12-ounce can of frozen apple juice concentrate and one 12-ounce can of frozen cranberry-apple juice concentrate, thawed, and combine them in a 4-quart kettle with six 12-ounce cans—that’s 9 cups—of water. Stir in a 6-ounce can of frozen lemonade concentrate (thawed first), and add five sticks of cinnamon, a teaspoon of ground nutmeg, and seven whole cloves.

Bring it to a boil, reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove the cinnamon sticks and the cloves. It’s optional to stir in 1/3 cup of rum or cinnamon schnapps—Canyondancer makes two batches, and spikes one. Be sure, he cautions, to let the brew cool below 100 degrees before adding alcohol. Serve this drink warm—and if you serve it in mugs instead of punch cups, you can put a fresh cinnamon stick in each mug. Each batch makes about 3 quarts, which is approximately 12 servings—of about 153 calories each (less without the alcohol), if you’re counting.

It’s with this that, once at the Groaning Board (a reference to the times when dining tables were just planks set up on sawhorses or barrels, and the feast dishes were so many and heavy that the plank, or board, groaned with the weight), we toast the Yule and each other. And by the way, a collection of everyone’s favorite Yule recipes makes a wonderful booklet, usually not too expensive to have copied at a local shop, for the coven to add to their individual Books of Shadows.