Mormon Wassail

I think these days most wassail is without alcohol anyway, right?  Or it that just the circles I run in?  This wassail is culturally Mormon because it's the wassail I make, it's made in a crockpot, and it is frugal in how it uses relatively inexpensive ingredients to make something fancier.  You can usually get a deal on the oranges this time of year.

One gallon ordinary apple juice
1 cup of good applesauce, to cloud up the juice.
Zest of one orange (zest!  not grated peel!  No pith!  No chunks!)
Tablespoon of cinnamon, or more to taste.  Stir to get that cinnamon powder to get wet and stop floating.

Put that in a crock pot on high, at least an hour before you're serving this.

Decorate the bottom of two or three oranges or tangerines by sticking ~20 cloves in each.  I like to do circles.  Slice the bottom of the fruit off, float it into the punch, peel side up.

Make the same number of pretty slices of the oranges or tangerines, float those as well.

Serve in crock pot, with cinnamon sticks on the side for stirrers.