New Years Eve for witches is really Samhain, or October 31^st, but we can go ahead and party along with the normals tonight, because for why not?

 A bit of wassailing and mumming would be fun. It’s trad, dad. Mumming has been around since the ancient Romans started it all way back when, the basic idea being that men and women would swap clothes, put on masks and go visiting their neighbors, singing, dancing or putting on skits to amuse.

 By medieval times, mumming had turned into an excuse for people to go begging round the houses and committing crimes. It became so bad that Henry VIII made a law saying that anyone that caught mumming wearing a mask would be put in prison for three months, but I’m fairly sure this law is no longer enforced.

All it really means is making diversion in disguise, so going masked or bewigged is en vogue this night of the year.

Wassailing is essentially just drinking and singing – in times of yore, wassail was a hot concoction of mulled ale, curdled cream, roasted apples, cinnamon, eggs, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and sugar, but that sounds just a tad heavy and complex, do you not think?

 A cocktail which brings together the traditional wassail elements of apple and cinnamon and adds bubbles and golden confetti seems like a more viable alternative for this wild night, let’s try that.

New Years Confetti Cocktail

 1 oz Apple Schnapps

1 oz Goldschläger or Smirnoff Gold vodka

Appletizer, IKEA Kolsyrad Appeldryck or any apple soda pop of your choice

 Apples symbolize the soul, and are used in magic for friendship and healing. You could use apple juice, ideally from freshly juiced apples, but I thought apple pop would be fun for this drink to add bubbles and fizz.

 Berentzen Golden Apple or Teichenne Red Apple are both good choices for schnapps, but don’t beat yourself up over it.

 Whether you choose to use Goldschläger or Smirnoff Gold, the cinnamon will stimulate prosperity and good luck, especially luck in love – the gold flakes use sympathetic magic to draw prosperity to you also.

Combine equal amounts of the 2 active ingredients and top up with the soda.

Swirl the drink with a swizzle stick or cinnamon stick and watch the gold flakes fly around like as if they were in a snowglobe.

Make sure you have somebody interesting to kiss at midnight, and as we embark on another bleak January, why not consider these wise words?

 – “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.” -Oscar Wilde.