It’s the first Friday of the month and here at The Brew Site, and other beer blogs, that means it’s time for The Session: collaborative blogging around a common beer-themed topic suggested by a different host each month. This month, host Phil Hardy of Beersay suggests a suitable Christmas theme: “A Christmas Carol”

The idea for me was based loosely around the visits of three ghosts to Ebenezer Scrooge, but relayed in a post about the beers of Christmas past, present and future.

What did you drink during Christmas holidays of old, have you plans for anything exciting this year and is there something you’d really like to do one day, perhaps when the kids have flown the nest?

Do you have your own interpretation, was Scrooge perhaps a beer geek?

Or maybe it’s all one day. What will you drink Christmas morning, Christmas afternoon and what will you top off the holiday with that evening?

Ghost of Christmas Past. I’ve always made it a point to try to have Deschutes Brewery’s Jubelale on hand since I discovered good beer and in the past I considered this a “staple” holiday beer (and still do). Christmas day in my family is spent at my parents house and while most of the time the beer they keep on hand is confined to canned macro brews (not that there’s anything wrong with that), for Christmas they would always splurge and buy a couple cases of Deschutes beers—Jubelale, Black Butte Porter, Mirror Pond Pale Ale—and often I would bring homebrew along as well as a treat. But I’ve also enjoyed many a Christmas Hamms or PBR or Miller High Life as well.

Ghost of Christmas Present. In recent years I have tended towards special beers that I can share and discover with family and friends; last year, for instance, I brewed a holiday beer I called “Christmas Cheer” (inspired by fruitcake and Old Ales), and opened a magnum of 2009 Anchor Christmas Ale. Of course it’s never confined just to beer: there’s been cider and mulled wine and shots of whiskey or tequila and eggnog (hard and regular) and coffee and so on. Here’s the thing: to invoke the late Don Younger, it’s not about the spirits, it’s about the spirit. As long as I’m spending Christmas with people I love it doesn’t matter what the drink is.

Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. This year I have a magnum bottle of 2010 Anchor Christmas Ale (generously given to me for my birthday last year, from my brother) and a growler-sized bottle of Altenmünster Winterbier, both of which I plan to share. And there will be other good beers on hand too, I’m quite sure. As there will be in Christmases to come. Do I have big “someday” plans for a future Christmas? Not in particular; to spend Christmas with family and friends, to drink and share good beer and good cheer, to be happy and satiated—that’s all the future I really need.