Puddings and Preparations

It’s that time of year again for preparing food in advance for Christmas. I’ve got fruit soaking in Earl Grey tea ready for the cake. We’re making Christmas Puddings in the hospice with patients. And I’ve acquired a very good selection of kilner jars for this season’s mincemeat. My cupboards are overflowing with dried fruit!

I love this time of year. It brings back memories of making puddings with my mum, using her handed down recipe from my great great grandmother, which I continue to make with my niece. First we made them for the church’s Christmas Bazaar cake stall. Then we took orders from extended family. Now I’ve shared it at work, using it as a therapeutic activity with patients and a fundraiser with staff.

One reason it’s such a successful recipe is that our family treats it like Trigger’s Broom (for those of you unfamiliar with TV programme Only Fools and Horses, this will explain: Beckham in Peckham – Only Fools and Horses | Comic Relief – YouTube). Guinness, Malibu, dried apricots, dried cranberries, fruit juices, whole almonds, candied peel, milk, and a host of other ingredients have made an appearance or been deliberately excluded according to the cook’s preference or family situation. My current version is vegan and teetotal but this year we’ll be trying out some new non-alcoholic spirits for flavour.

But one tradition never changes – we never make just one. This is always a recipe to be shared and given away.

The original recipe was for 14lbs of pudding – that’s 7 generous family sized puds! So it was designed for sharing. But even if we do the maths and make fewer, it’s always a communal experience.

The memory that stands out is in my mum’s final year, when my husband and I took all the ingredients to her nursing home one evening and made it one last time with her. But everyone in the lounge had a stir and a wish and the extras we made went to the staff who helped, who had never tasted a homemade version before. How wonderful it was for my mum, who lived her life giving out to others, to turn the tables and care for her carers.

Nourishment isn’t just in the physical food though, is it? It’s in the love behind the preparation. It’s in the generosity of giving away the finished product. It’s in the sharing of the experience itself. It’s in the laughter and help and kindness.

I see this often in reverse working in palliative care – how hard it is for family when a loved one’s illness progresses so they can no longer eat normally and turn down meals offered. To the carer it can feel like it’s not just the food being rejected.

Jesus knew this all too well too. No wonder He countered one temptation with:

“Man does not live by bread alone.”

But we mustn’t forget He also added:

“But on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

We all need physical nourishment. But we also need social and spiritual nourishment. Without all three we live at best a monochrome life or at worst we wither away.

And perhaps that’s the value of Advent. Just as we can prepare physical food ahead of the Big Day, so we can take this opportunity to consider how to nourish ourselves spiritually and communally.

Perhaps that means daily Bible readings using an Advent devotional (check out your local Christian bookshop or Lucy Rycroft has some great recommendations here: 20 Best Books to Read During Advent – The Hope-Filled Family (thehopefilledfamily.com)).  Perhaps it means going to church (physically or online) regularly. Perhaps it means doing a Reverse Advent Calendar (plenty of ideas here Reverse advent calendar: what is it and why should you make one? (goodto.com) but do check what they need and by when if you’re doing it for a local foodbank).

What will you do for nourishment this Advent? I’d love to hear in the Comments.

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