Life

Boozy Christmas Ornaments Are A Thing So You Must Have Been Very Good This Year

by Cat Bowen

If you've never before thought about decking your "boughs of holly" with "booze so jolly," than the latest trend in Christmas tree decor will blow your mind. This season, aspiring Martha Stewart's the world over will be cheering up their ol' tannenbaum with tiny Tanqueray and tequila. No, I'm not kidding. The hottest trend in holiday adornments is booze Christmas ornaments. Tiny baubles that you fill with your favorite liquor and hang on the tree.

The trend began a few Christmases ago when Edinburgh distillery Pickerings Gin started selling holiday ornaments filled with their premium gins, as Refinery29 reported. They were an instant hit and sold out in pre-order. While those particular ornaments remain incredibly popular, they're only available in the UK. So intrepid American entrepreneurs, refusing to sit on the sidelines while their English friends got in on the tipply tree action, started manufacturing the empty ornaments, ready to be filled with whatever booze fits your flight of fancy. In the past two years, the market has taken off, and now they're available everywhere from Amazon to Etsy in a wide range of sizes and colors. The cool thing is that many of the sellers on websites like Etsy will customize your ornament with a name, a phrase, or even a monogram.

Think of all the possibilities these little delights bring. You could do an entirely boozy tree, provided your children are too young to open them. You could do an Advent calendar style setup, where each booze Christmas ornament is filled with something new and wonderful. And consider how great they'd be as party favors. Get a paint pen — with a calligraphy tip if you're so daring — and write everyone's name on their ornament and fill it with their favorite booze (you can find empty, ready-to-decorate ornaments on Amazon for $14). Or, pick up a pack of pre-decorated ornaments, like these Festive Boozeballs from Firebox ($13, Firebox).

If you're really crafty, consider making your own homemade infused alcohol to use to fill the ornaments. I love making my own limoncello, but I've never thought of giving it away before. And coquito, the incredibly popular and delicious rum-based drink from Puerto Rico, would be quite festive given its white color. Just make sure you store those bad boys in the fridge or freezer before handing them out. I would not suggest eggnog unless you're planning on drinking them at the party. It's all fun and booze until someone gets e-coli, am I right?

The thing about these alcoholic Christmas ornaments is that they're so much fun, but they're also so cheap. You can buy multi-packs and a bottle of gin, and you're only out maybe $60 if you buy the really good gin — and why wouldn't you buy the really good gin?

And if you're in the mood to make a really boozy tree, you could always buy a few boxes worth of hotel bottle sized spirits and tie a red ribbon to their neck and hang them on the tree that way. It's a much different look and feel than the filled baubles, but hey, you're getting in the Christmas spirit, right? Or you're at least hanging spirits on your tree, which is basically the same thing. Let's just hope you don't drink enough of those little ornaments that the Ghost of Christmas Past comes to visit you in the morning in the form of a wicked hangover.

No matter how you choose to decorate your tree this year, one thing is for certain... there are plenty of us who love the idea of a booze Christmas ornament, and we're going all out. Seriously, my mom always tells me that the gin I love so much tastes like a pine tree, so I may as well hang it from one.