Happy New Year to all you moon lovers! 🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕
This week we hosted our annual(ish) Christmas Tree Burning Party—a highly anticipated and exciting event that viscerally illustrates the importance of keeping your tree well watered when it’s sitting in your living room.
To our surprised delight, the night we picked (based on the cleaning lady’s schedule) auspiciously happened to fall on the eve of Lunar New Year. So we ratcheted up the ceremony a bit, to match.
🤲 Playing with spirit fire & moonshadow
You may be familiar with the 12 animals of the Lunar Zodiac (perhaps from Chinese menus), which rotate annually and mark each year with certain characteristics. A child of 1986, I’ve always known I’m a Tigerborn—but did you know that each year is also associated with one of 5 elements?
These cycle every 2 years, such that years ending in:
0-1 = Metal
2-3 = Water
4-5 = Wood
6-7 = Fire
8-9 = Earth
So in 2026, we’re galloping into the Year of the Fire Horse (a rare alignment that happens only every 6 decades), which promises pummeling change and high-stakes challenges. For fun reference, the previous Fire Horse year was 1966…pretty tumultuous even by era standards.
🧨 Make it a good one
Before setting spark, we all wrote our hopes, intentions, and manifestations for the new year on notecards and tucked them into the dry evergreen branches…to rise up with the flames and disseminate into the spiritual atmosphere.
Meanwhile we celebrated togetherness and friendship, and warmed up the late-winter evening with a spigot-dispenser of hot mocktail (I took mine spiked with reposado mezcal), and finally gathered outside around my hand-dug firepit to watch the previous season go up in a cleansing and invigorating inferno🎄🔥
🍹 Drink o’ the Feast
Pineapple Upside-Down Cake:
6 parts pineapple juice
4 parts cherry juice
1-2 parts maple or honey
1 part cream (or coconut milk)
Pinch salt
1-2 dashes Fee Brothers Black Walnut bitters
Optional: Add 4-6 parts reposado mezcal, whiskey, gin, or your chosen spirit
Serve hot, topped with whipped cream & grated nutmeg
Heat ingredients over medium without letting it boil, then add liquor (if desired), garnish, and serve.
What are you looking forward to this year? Comment below! 👇
