That Coffee Pot Thing

We went to Practice Thanksgiving last weekend at our friend's house and they had hot spiced cider to drink.  I love hot spiced cider.  I like making it for holiday parties and I like drinking it in general any time of the year. 

I usually put a big pot on the oven, add in a gallon of apple cider and add mulling spices to it.  When it's hot and ready I put mugs by the stove and people use a ladle to fill up a mug.  And that's worked well, only there's usually a bit of a mess around the area.  My friends had an altogether better solution, they had a big coffee pot thing.

It's one of those things you see at company meetings where you put your mug up to the container, pull the lever down and coffee comes out right into your cup.  They had just used it for making cider.  What a great idea.   They prepared the cider beforehand and when people started arriving, they plugged it in and in a few minutes, they had hot cider ready.

And I wanted one of those coffee pot things.  I asked my father-in-law the next day what they were called.  I was looking on Amazon under "coffee pot" and I was coming up with over seventeen-hundred results.  He wasn't sure, so he asked my mother-in-law.  She immediately called out, "you want a coffee urn." 

And that's what they're called.  I found a very nice one for thirty-eight dollars including shipping.  It arrived yesterday evening.  I was ready with my wassail recipe with apple juice, spices, sliced orange and lemon.  Oh, and the wine and rum.  I filled up the urn and was ready to turn it on for Thanksgiving Dinner.

Today, I turned it on.  I turned it on early.  I drank wassail from four-thirty to nine o'clock.  It's a good thing wassail isn't that strong or I'd be laid out by now.  I am very fond of my new coffee urn.  For Christmas, I'm going to make spiced cider.  

The Big Boy Update:  "The sun is getting wet."  My son was looking outside yesterday at the rain.  He and Mimi talked about how it was landing on the deck and splashing.  He looked at her and said, "the sun is getting wet."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   Busted lip.  Two days ago she fell in the garage and split her lip.  She was upset for a short while and it stopped bleeding rather quickly, but the next morning it looked frightful.  It's still swollen today and has a large vertical gray scab.  It doesn't seem to bother her much, but I've been having her put chap stick on it to keep it moist while it heals.

Fatness Update:  At least, that's how I feel after Thanksgiving dinner tonight.  It was a delightful night with family and friends and I'd gladly do it again (but give me a year to recuperate first).