Why this word is great
WASSAILER — [Noun] A participant in the ancient, itinerant ritual of wassailing, especially one who goes door-to-door during the Christmas season, singing carols and offering communal toasts for health. From wassail (from Middle English wassail, a salutation meaning 'be healthy', from Old Norse ves heill) + the agent noun suffix -er. Unlike a carouser, who drinks with ahistorical abandon, or a toaster, who performs a singular, declarative act, the wassailer is a ritualist of archaic fellowship—a fleeting conduit for propitiation and shared warmth against the winter dark. Picture him: his breath a visible psalm in the frigid air, his cup a vessel of spiced warmth proffered at the threshold, his voice a rough harmony against the creak of an opening door. He is the ghost of a needier winter, enacting the old, stubborn bargain of song for sustenance to prove that warmth and goodwill are currencies that must be kept in circulation, lest they be forgotten entirely.