100 days to Christmas | childhood traditions

Today I have my very first guest post - from my mum! I've been hassling asking her for weeks to write something for me, and she finally caved came through.

{source}

I grew up in the 50s & 60s in Melbourne.

The build up to Christmas always started in September every year. The mums and aunts would gather at our house to make Christmas cakes and puddings. There would be huge vats of fruity batter fermenting, then the boiling of the puddings and baking of the cakes. 

The finished cakes were usually wrapped in greaseproof paper and layer upon layer of newspaper then tied with string before storing in a dark cupboard until Christmas eve. Decorating would be simple, a sprinkle of icing sugar over the top just before serving, sometimes slathered with real butter.

The puddings were given special treatment. Hung up in the laundry for months, they would swing there terrifying the little ones at night looking ghostly in the moonlight. It was not unusual to cut the mould of the outside before re-wrapping for the Christmas day 4 hour re-heat.

Pudding on Christmas day was always a treat. Three and six pence coins then were made mostly of silver. Coins were actually cooked into the pudding so one never knew if they would get one coin or a number of them. It was always fun eating right to the bottom of the bowl dreading that you might swallow one of the precious coins. The problem was not that you might choke, more that you wouldn’t have money to buy sweets.

{as you can see, Mum is used to Christmas starting in September!}

Thanks for sharing, Mum!

Do you make Christmas pudding, or is store-bought ok?