Sparkling Cranberry Apple Cider Punch

The week between Christmas and New Year, quiet and heavy with the satisfaction of a season well-fed. The children are still home, which is the real gift — not the cookbook, not the sweater Calvin bought me, not the candle from Destiny that smells like lavender and good intentions. The real gift is the noise. The arguments over the television remote. The dishes in the sink. The shoes by the door. The evidence of people living in a house, filling it with the debris of love.

I made black-eyed peas on Saturday for New Year's Day, same as always. The tradition holds. Mama's law holds. I soaked the peas overnight and cooked them with a ham hock and onion and garlic, and the house smelled like luck and the coming year, and I stood at the stove and did the thing I always do at the turn of the year — I took stock. I counted. Not the money in the bank or the items in the pantry but the people. CJ is alive and well in Huntsville. Destiny is alive and well at UAB. Marcus is alive and well in his bedroom, playing music too loud. Calvin is alive and well in the study. Daddy is alive in the nursing home. Mama is alive in Bessemer. Everyone is here. The count is complete. The count is good.

Marcus and I had a conversation Wednesday night that I am still thinking about. We were in the kitchen — he was at the table, I was at the stove, the usual arrangement — and he said Mama, do you think you will ever stop cooking for the church. And I said baby, I will stop cooking when they stop eating. And he said but what about for yourself. What do you do for yourself. And I thought about it, really thought about it, and I said the cooking is for myself. It is the thing I do that makes me most myself. I am most Loretta when I am stirring a pot. I am most alive when the kitchen is full. The giving is the getting. He nodded. He is eighteen and wise in the way that young people are wise sometimes — accidentally, profoundly, in the middle of an ordinary Wednesday conversation that neither of us will forget.

New Year's Eve was quiet. Calvin and I watched the countdown. He stayed awake this year until midnight, which I consider growth. We clinked glasses of sparkling cider — non-alcoholic, as always, because this is a pastor's house and the only spirits here are Holy — and Calvin said here's to another year, and I said here's to the food and the family and the table that holds them both. And the clock struck midnight. And the year turned. And the black-eyed peas were ready.

I did not know, on that New Year's Eve, what the new year would bring. I stood at the stove serving peas and counting blessings and I did not know. Nobody tells you about the last New Year before your world ends. Nobody prepares you for the midnight that divides before from after. You just stand there, counting, grateful, unaware. The peas are good. The family is here. The year is new. Amen.

We clinked our glasses at midnight — Calvin still awake, bless him — and I have thought about that moment many times since. The drink in our glasses was a sparkling cider punch I had made that evening, deep red and festive in the good crystal I save for occasions worth remembering, and I want to share it here because if you are standing at your own stove this New Year’s Eve, counting your people and your blessings, you deserve something beautiful in your glass. This Sparkling Cranberry Apple Cider Punch is what we raised that night — non-alcoholic, as is our house, but full of joy all the same. Make it for whoever is still at your table. The count is good. Let’s drink to that.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 10 minutes | Servings: 10–12

Ingredients

4 cups cranberry juice cocktail, chilled
2 cups apple cider, chilled
1 liter ginger ale or sparkling water, chilled
1/2 cup fresh or frozen cranberries (for garnish)
1 medium apple, thinly sliced (for garnish)
1 orange, thinly sliced (for garnish)
Fresh rosemary sprigs (optional, for garnish)
Ice ring or ice cubes

Instructions

Chill everything. Make sure your cranberry juice, apple cider, and ginger ale are all well-chilled before you begin — this keeps the punch cold longer and preserves the fizz.
Combine the base. In a large punch bowl, stir together the cranberry juice cocktail and apple cider until well combined.
Add the sparkle. Just before serving, slowly pour in the ginger ale or sparkling water. Pour gently along the side of the bowl to preserve as much carbonation as possible.
Garnish generously. Add the fresh or frozen cranberries, apple slices, and orange rounds directly to the punch bowl. Tuck in a few rosemary sprigs if you like a little green and a faint herbal fragrance.
Add ice and serve. Place an ice ring or ice cubes into the bowl and ladle into glasses immediately. For individual servings, pour over ice in stemmed glasses or mason jars.

Nutrition (per serving)

Sparkling Cranberry Apple Cider Punch — The Toast We Made When We Still Had Everything