My mom likes to throw these big, informal, everyone-come-on-over get-togethers, especially around Christmas. She’ll set out a bunch of food, while Dad gets the firepit going.
One perennial favorite of her holiday buffets is a delicious hot punch with spiced cranberry and citrus flavors. It tastes like the holidays and makes the house smell amazing. It’s particularly excellent for sipping around the fire on a chilly night.
The recipe makes enough for a crowd without requiring a lot of fuss, so you can focus on decking the halls and whatever else you need to do.
Mom makes it (by the gallon) and serves it in her crockpot to keep it hot all evening. She’ll put a ladle and a stack of festive mugs next to it, so guests can help themselves.
Although the title on her recipe card says “cranberry tea,” the tea part is actually optional. Most of the time, she leaves it out. Then you have an equally delicious hot cranberry punch.
Hot Cranberry Tea (or Punch) Recipe
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1/4 cup loose black tea (omit for punch)
3 cups sugar
2 cups orange juice
1/2 gallon cranberry juice
1 cup lemon juice (or substitute a 12-ounce can of frozen lemonade and reduce sugar to 2 cups)
10 cups + 6 cups of hot water
Optional: orange and/or lemon slices and cinnamon sticks (for garnish).
Wrap the spices and tea in a piece of cheesecloth or place into a tea infuser.
Steep in 10 cups of hot water for 20 minutes.
Add sugar, juices, and 6 more cups of hot water.
If desired, garnish with orange or lemon slices and cinnamon sticks.
Serve hot.
Makes about 7 quarts of punch. (Invite a lot of people over.)
Mesa’s annual holiday celebration, Merry Main Street, includes concerts, an arts and craft market, food trucks, visits from Santa, and – most surprisingly in an Arizona desert city – an outdoor ice skating rink.
O Christmas Market
While there are Merry Main Street activities throughout the downtown, the centerpiece of the celebration is the 40-foot-tall Christmas tree and market that takes over Macdonald on the north side of Main Street.
What you’ll find here…
Mesa’s official Christmas tree – this is where you can see Santa Friday and Saturday evenings.
Mesa Christmas Market – 30 local vendors selling handcrafted items, food and gifts in booths set up around the Christmas tree.
Most of the time, you’ll only find an ice rink in Arizona inside a large, air-conditioned building. So, the temporary Winter Wonderland Ice Rink installed for the holidays in Mesa City Plaza is a downright novelty. It’s really fun to watch people skating around there, even if some of them are wearing shorts.
Speaking of Arizonans’ winter apparel (or lack thereof), Winter Wonderland just assumes you don’t own ice skates (and you probably don’t), so they automatically include skate rental in the ticket price.
Free Rides
You can ride the mile stretch of the Light Rail between Country Club and Mesa Drive free on December weekends from 5-10pm.
This weekend (December 13-14), there will also be special decorated “Polar Express” light rail trains with Santa, elves, cookies, and singing on board. Pajama-wearing is encouraged. No tickets are required.
Pioneer Park
The weekly Mesa Feastival Forest in Pioneer Park turns into Jack Frost’s Food Truck Forest on Friday and Saturday nights during the holidays. Check their Facebook page for updates on the food truck lineup.
Also in Pioneer Park…
The Mesa Farmers Market and Flea will continue to be held in the park on Saturday mornings – with a few extra festive touches like additional vendors and photos with Santa from 9-11am.
Kiddos can ride the trackless Main Street Express Train there for free during food truck or farmers’ market hours.
In past years, you could sometimes hear the choir singing outside the LDS Temple across the street. This year, however, the annual Christmas Lights display and concerts have been suspended due to major renovations of the buildings and grounds, which are scheduled to be completed in 2020.
The Space Between
Like a microcosm of the City of Mesa itself, Merry Main Street is a bit sprawling (although it’s gotten less spread out than in previous years).
Activities are just close enough together that you’re not sure you want to wait for even a free light rail ride, but far enough apart that you have time to regret it as you traverse the vast, vacant expanses of sidewalk between things.
How to Merry Main Street
The the best approach might be to enjoy different parts of Merry Main Street throughout the season, instead of thinking of it as all one event. Stop by the food truck forest before heading over to a performance at the MAC. Have an ice skating night. Do some holiday shopping and take some photos in front of the tree (or in the selfie stations or with Santa).
Why not go multiple times? There’s no admission cost, parking is free, and each time the weather will probably be so nice you could wear shorts to go ice skating.
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.