I put hot toddy/cider/wassail (or egg-nog etc) because that's the only time adults let me drink alcohol. They don't do it responsibly though, just giving me access to the whole lot, so I have to be extra careful to pace myself, which isn't as fun as just taking whatever small amount they allot me, but I guess it teaches me to pace myself. Doesn't work out so well for my sibling, though.
Anyway, what's that look on Hannelore's face... like she knows something, ashamed to hide from Sven. Does she know about the caterer? Who they are? Maybe she and Dora were discussing her and Tai's wedding earlier, and Hannelore said something that gave Dora the very idea? Spooky.
Completely unrelated, but I read about some old Russian author's opinion about coincidence. The idea is to set up a situation, like losing a priceless family heirloom - say a watch, say off the board of a cruise ship - and having our lyrical hero obsess about that, agonizing, losing sleep.
The next day, our lyrical hero, just when they're about ready to forget it all, cut their losses and get on with their life, would be invited to a restaurant noted for fine fish - but something's fishy at the scene, something must have gone terribly awry, because the waitstaff keep trying to convince our lyrical hero against this fish, against that fish, against any which fish they might try ordering - is this a fish establishment or is it not? - would ask our incredulous lyrical hero, adamantine about their order, so the waitstaff acquiesce, saying will do what they can about it. Rumors begin echoing, whispered (imagined?) behind our lyrical hero's (literal) back, about an ostensible mishap, last night, on that troll boat one's cousin's acquaintance had invested in. Finally the waitstaff present that fish, the very one our lyrical hero first tried ordering, who would voraciously - having not eaten since that cruise yesterday - pummels it, with his fork, his knife, tearing it to shreds - certainly upsetting the neighboring diners - to find, in it's gut, what else, but... nothing.
That coincidence is an invention, an artifice in life, as it oughtta be in literature. What one, in an insomnolent delirium, might build up for oneself, to attempt cheat chance - but chance, harsh spirit, cannot be so easily beat - for that artifice to crumble, leaving only rubble to clean up, or flee.
Or maybe I didn't read that anywhere - I never remember where from, only an impression of the source (I've been obsessing over Vladimir Nabokov's literature recently) unless I wrote it down - maybe merely a dream, or some conversation with eternity.