Buddy from “Elf” says the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear, but apparently, he hasn’t seen former Green Bay Packers punter Jon Ryan’s Instagram.
Each year for the last five, Ryan and his wife, comedian and actress Sarah Colonna, do a “liquor advent calendar.” It’s their take on the tradition of counting down to Christmas Day, not with a calendar where you open a tiny window or drawer each day in December to reveal everything from beautiful images to chocolates to Legos, but with little bottles of booze in brown paper bags.
“For those of you that are new here, we drink a shot of something not good … sometimes good. It’s a mystery bag, and we have a local liquor store and friends put them in a brown paper bag, and then we just drink it,” Colonna said in the inaugural 2025 post.
It got off to a bitter start when they were surprised to find Jeppson’s Malort, a Swedish liqueur flavored with anise or wormwood, in the first bag they opened.
“It tastes like a cleaning supply,” said Ryan, the Canadian who played for the Packers in 2006 and 2007 and can be counted on to give his frank opinion, complete with facial expressions and a red wine chaser in the videos. (Be warned: There’s also some adult language, too.)
The 100-proof Rumple Minze peppermint schnapps went down a little easier on Day 2.
“I forgot how minty it was,” Ryan said, joking that he hasn’t had it since he was 14. “… It’s making my face redder than usual.”
But the Fireball Blazin’ Apple was a hard no for them both. “It tastes like regret,” he said.
Jon Ryan was the Green Bay Packers punter in 2006 and 2007. This time of year you’ll find him on his Instagram doing his annual “liquor advent calendar” with his wife, Sarah Colonna.
The couple goes bottoms up on its liquor advent calendar from their festively decorated home each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, “because we need a couple of days to recover sometimes after tasting these god-awful things,” Colonna said.
It has become so popular that friends begin asking in January when the next one will begin.
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The two also do a humorous weekly book club podcast called “The Book Lisp with Jon Ryan & Sarah Colonna.”
After two seasons with the Packers, Ryan was cut by the team the week of the 2008 regular season opener and signed with the Seattle Seahawks. He played for 10 seasons with the Seahawks and signed a one-day contract last year to retire with the team. When the Packers played Seattle on Dec. 15, 2024, at Lumen Field, it was Ryan who did the pregame honors of raising the 12th Man Flag at the stadium.
Kendra Meinert is an entertainment and feature writer at the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Contact her at 920-431-8347 or kmeinert@greenbay.gannett.com. Follow her on X @KendraMeinert.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Ex-Packers punter Jon Ryan and wife do annual ‘liquor advent calendar’