Stir Up Sunday. - Reviving old Christmas traditions.

In the Christmas Kitchen with the Professional Countrywoman. 

Stir Up Sunday is the traditional day to make your Christmas Pudding and this year falls on this coming Sunday 23 November, the Sunday before Advent.  It’s the day where you make your pudding which of course is much nicer after mellowing for the 5 weeks before the big day.  Stir Up Sunday takes it’s name from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer where the prayer for the Sunday before Advent starts with these words;

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Supposedly the cooks or mothers in the congregation would immediately say to themselves “Goodness Gracious – that reminds me – time to stir up the Christmas Pudding!” So off home they would go to get the pudding on.  It was always the day that the family got together to make the pudding; and was an opportunity to show the children how to prepare it and to take turns at stirring the mix and making a wish.  That’s when coins were added too –which is another tradition you may have heard of. I don’t know how many teeth have been broken over the years by crunching on a thruppence but I think I will give this one a miss. Unless you put a $2 coin in, no modern child is going to be that interested and really if you put those in there would be no room for the actual pudding

I think it’s a lovely tradition and more in rhythm with the traditional festival of Christmas - as opposed to Christmas Carols from October onwards in the Malls! In a world where we are losing so many connections with out past this is a good one to revive. So in the few days between now and Sunday make sure you have the ingredients ready for your pudding. Over the years we have collected lots of Christmas themed recipe books which do a great job of getting you in the mood for the Season so I think I will get them out now and start looking at them.  There are lots of recipes out there so check them out.

 In our family it was always my grandmother who made the pudding so I made it my business to learn from her and that mantle has passed to me. I have made a few tweaks (mostly involving brandy) and now have an excellent recipe down pat. 

They do take a bit of attention – it takes 5-6 hours to steam a family size pudding and for many years I made them to sell so would sometimes set the alarm to get up in the night to check on them!     

So this Sunday – get your family together and get your Christmas pudding on the go!