Punch is what children drink at parties. Punch is something harmless, usually. Well there was that one time at the Jim Jones/People’s Temple theme party back in college where we added lots of vodka and spray painted cars and buildings on the way home and thought we’d dreamt it until we saw the building a couple days later and a car drove by and proved we hadn’t.

Here, though. Punch is part of winter. In the Christmas season, most town squares have little villages of little wooden huts before which you can stand around tables drinking mugs of mulled wine or punch. Charities sell the stuff. I had my first punch last night with Alpha and the girls. I ordered a Feuerengel Punch. “Fire Angel Punch”. Beta said it must be the best because it was the most expensive. I asked the guy what it was and he said, “a little stronger.” What he did when I paid was pour me a regular punch – which is hot – and then added another shot of rum to it.

You wouldn’t want to drive after even one of those punches. It’s quite a nice tradition. The square is decorated in Christmas fashion, with lights and boughs and things. Some of the stands sell ornaments or other crappy doo-dads and knick-knacks. And people in winter dress are standing around, their breath condensing around them, getting shitfaced on punch and mulled wine as their young children tug on them and pull on them and whine that they want to finally ride on the carousel finally you promised.

But we stopped at one (Alpha had a mulled wine, Beta a Kinderpunch, Gamma too I guess) and had Japanese food instead, at the local Japanese restaurant, which of course is run by a Chinese couple.