Welcome, “dear” readers, to our newly regular letter column; a series of missives from and to the internet, delivered by a series of tubes. We welcome your comments and questions about anything. We’ll answer you, and at least one of us will take things seriously. Maybe. Or maybe not! Who knows. It’s not like we need you. We’re doing fine without you, DAD. We’ve never been better since you left. No, YOU have a drinking problem. Let’s see if Brandon actually reads these.

Thank you, internet.

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Jay (@jayrunham) asks: A jello crown or a glass dessert?

James: Are you fucking kidding me?

Brandon: Are you kids having a spat again? What do I have to get your mom?

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Jay decides to be serious: What’s the best winter holiday boozy drink?

James: I ain’t even gonna front by looking up that pretty neat Serious Eats article on Thanksgiving/holiday cocktails from a couple of weeks ago and pretending I know about mixology. I don’t. The most complicated cocktail I make is either putting maple syrup and lemon in my bourbon (the maple leaf) or making hard lemonade, where the hardest part is making the actual lemonade. I’m not really a cocktails guy, even though I can appreciate a good one if someone’s making it for me. That said, even I, a cocktails dummy, know that the best winter cocktails involve two things:

1. Warm spices, like cloves, cinnamon or mace;

B. Being served warm;

To this effect, I think the answer is simple: the hot toddy and mulled wine/glogg/etc. Both have similar elements: warm spices, citrus (in most variations), usually a sweetener (honey or sugar) and, of course, warm liquor. In the case of the hot toddy, it’s water & whisky. With mulled wine, it’s, well, I feel like I don’t have to explain that part. Both are classic, perfect warm drinks for a snowy night when you’ve come in from the cold, and people swear by their restorative powers in an effort to not seem like they have a drinking problem.

Another classic holiday beverage is, of course, eggnog. And honestly, I’ve only been able to drink it without physically gagging in the last year, after a friend encouraged me to try her soy nog. I trepidatiously tried it, and it turns out I like it! Since then, I’ve gradually worked up to real eggnog and, as of this weekend, the infamous Starbucks eggnog latte. Soon, I may even try making my own aged eggnog, which is apparently very safe, though if I’m not here in January then either Danica finally killed me or the eggnog did it first. Either way, I had a good run.

Eggnog, while cold, often shares a common element with toddies and mulled wine, which is the warm spices. While optional, some people, like John Legend in A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All, are of the belief that eggnog just isn’t complete without nutmeg on top. If you’re out of nutmeg, you probably won’t go to jail if you skip it, but it certainly makes it better. Just like the addition of rum.

However, as someone who spent years trying to like eggnog and having his body reject it, I can’t in good conscious call it the best winter holiday boozy drink. Similarly, people who call putting Irish Cream in coffee a “boozy holiday drink” are beneath our concern and our contempt.

Brandon: I can’t argue with a good mulled wine - that shit is delicious - though lately, Danica and I have been adding Jägermeister Spice to hot chocolates made with goat’s milk and son, you don’t even know.

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Chris (@chrisinedmonton) asks: Why are all those tables, ladders and chairs under any given WWE ring? The tables especially.

James: The tables, clearly, are there to have the chairs something to sit around.

I imagine that the foreign objects are under the ring more or less because they’re realistic enough things that might be found beneath a ring, as opposed to a kendo stick, which is, frankly, ridiculous. It’s feasible enough that there might be extra chairs left over from ringside seating that they’d stick them underneath, or be put there in case all of a sudden you need extra seating or a replacement table, like if someone was to go trough the Spanish announcers’ table. You could even get vaguely meta and say that in a world where hardcore or no-disqualification matches occur regularly, the story reason they’re there is the same reason that they’re actually there, which is that a match might end up demanding it. Those matches are even sometimes made up on the fly, so it could be considered planning ahead.

Personally, I like to believe that they’re there in case someone’s teen daughter needs to have a birthday party.

Brandon: I’ve always loved the whole “we’ve started the show with no plan, so I guess this will be your main event tonight” form of planning. In a world where that happens on the regular, I bet that they keep shit around just in case. Or that they are so bad at planning, they have never have space for all of their shit, and it’s too close to show time to drag it all back to the shipping trucks.

But more than anything, they are there because wrestle shows.

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Chris continues, in response to news that David Goyer and SyFy are developing a series about Krypton before it expodes and a baby Kal-El is sent to earth: We know the planet is doomed and there “shouldn’t” be powers on the show, so why should I care about Krypton?

James: Honestly, a potential Krypton series has the same problem as Gotham, which Scott Williams and I discussed when it began. Namely, it could in fact be a very good show, but it has a definite uphill battle, which is that since we already know how it ends, it runs the risk of a potential fatalistic nihilism. After all, we know that everybody fails and everybody but one-to-five people die, depending on whether or not they want to have Supergirl, Zod and Zod’s henchmen, just like we know that Gotham basically has to end with Jim Gordon failing and Batman showing up. It could be easy to just not watch it, because, well, you already know the story. Personally, I think that while Krypton is interesting in small bites - I’m a big fan of John Byrne‘s sterile, emotionless Krypton in the 80s Man of Steel miniseries, where Kal-El is the only baby in generations born out of love - it’s definitely the least interesting part of Superman, an infinitely interesting superhero. I even think that Smallville, while it arguably overstayed its usefulness, offered more because while you knew where it began and ended right from the start, they still had room to make their own mythology. That’s definitely harder in Krypton, which takes something we normally see as a prologue and presumably stretches it into the entire story.

That said, it could be interesting to check out, just as a curiosity. Maybe the cast will be good. Maybe the costumes and set design will be interesting, or they’ll flesh out the setting of the world in a really compelling way. After all, the inherent tragedy in the death of Krypton is that it was billions of lives suddenly ended, so it’s not difficult to think that maybe some of those stories will be interesting enough that the writers will make you forget, if only for an hour at a time, that there’s a ticking clock overhead. Or maybe it will be bad, or maybe it will be something you watch once and forget, like Caprica. Either way, the reason to check it out is the same as any show: you want to be told a story.

Brandon: Stories like the first bits of the James Robinson and Greg Rucka penned Superman: New Krypton would make it worthwhile, where it was all about class systems and guilds and trying to break out of perceived rolls. I think that would be a great story to tell for this current age. I’d also hold off on even side-mentioning any potential doom and gloom until you know it’s your last season, which… would play a bit hinky, considering I’d be layering most of it with day-to-day soap with a splash of sci-fi tossed in for flavouring, buuuuuut that’s probably one of the myriad of reasons I don’t get paid to do stuff like this.

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Scott (@scottowilliams) asks: What “team” character [presumably in comics] who has never had a solo series, should?

James: This might be cheating, but after seeing her really take off in Gillen and McKelvie‘s Young Avengers and the Fraction/Wu/Aja run of Hawkeye - particularly her solo issues in Los Angeles - I think Kate Bishop deserves her own Hawkeye title. As much as that series has revitalized Clint Barton, Kate is such a phenomenal breakout character in it that it seems criminal to not get to see what adventures she gets up to on her own every month.

My answer would have been Squirrel Girl, but that is already happening. And even if none of you dirtbags have read it, Patsy Walker: Hellcat got her own miniseries and I had to disqualify my favourite non-Spider-Man character.

Brandon: Also, Patsy Walker had many of her own series from the 40s through to the 60s as one of Marvel’s model characters. Man, Patsy Walker is a treasure trove of awesomeness.

The trick with this question comes down to the fact that many, if not most “team” characters have had their own solos. The Thing has, Johnny Storm has… I don’t think Sue Storm has and… well, I would read that, most definitely. Barring that, maybe a Molly Hayes series. Yeah, probably that - though honestly, a new series of Runaways would be preferred.

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Scott continues: Best and worst Christmas song?

James: The worst, well, the worst famous one seems pretty easy to say it’s either “Christmas Shoes” (insipid, manipulative trash) or “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” which has taken on an an unavoidable, practically indefensible connotation in the last few years. While I certainly don’t think it was intended to be an ode to holiday date rape, it’s certainly become that and it’s a pretty easy choice for worst. You could also throw in literally any song from last year’s War Rocket Ajax Christmas Special, any song from their 2011 Christmas special, or just go with “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, which manages to add condescension to an already odious song.

As for best, I think you almost have to separate it into two categories: traditional carols and modern songs. For carols, I’ve always been a fan of “Good King Wenceslas,” which is really bouncy and fun to sing. For modern songs, I’ve always been a fan of the slow or sad ones, and my mind immediately goes to Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” and Elvis’ “Blue Christmas.” A dark horse contender, however, is almost any song from Low’s Christmas EP; “Just Like Christmas” and “If You Were Born Today (Song For Little Baby Jesus)” are standouts. Even “Just Like Christmas,” which is maybe the bounciest, happiest song the band has ever recorded, has a mournful wistfulness that comes from Mimi Parker’s haunting voice. It’s a really wonderful juxtaposition and it’s a nice album to have on, by yourself, on Christmas Eve once everyone else is in bed.

Brandon: Yeah, “Reggae Christmas” has to be up for one of the worst. As for best? “Christmas Time Is Here” is probably my favourite. Very nostalgic for me.

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That’s it for the 156th instalment of Um, Actually. Check in every Tuesday for a brand new column. If you have anything you’d like answered, hit up our contact page! If you submit anything via Twitter – to @blogaboutcomics, @Leask, or @soupytoasterson – remember to include the hashtag #UMACTUALLY so that we don’t lose it. Remember: you can ask us anything. Seriously, anything.