I have to confess I don’t give a great deal of thought to Christmas shopping – I normally support the wise decisions that Clare makes in this regard and am grateful she has it all under control. I do give much more thought to Christmas food! The adverts by all the major supermarket chains already have me thinking of all the delicacies that, with the right hints in the right places, might appear on our dining room table.
That said, of all the food at Christmas time, it wouldn’t be the same for me without a good portion of Christmas pudding. According to ‘Which?’ Magazine, the best pudding this year is from Morrisons. The Christmas pudding taste panel, including Great British Bake Off 2013 winner Frances Quinn and food critic Charles Campion, blind tasted 11 Christmas puddings and the Morrisons contribution was hailed as “simply majestic”, having a “great depth of flavour”. The more expensive pudding from Fortnum and Mason was described as tasting like “citrus bathroom cleaner”!
In reality, I don’t think you can beat the home-made variety. I’ve learned a lot about Christmas puddings this week from the respected cooks within our corps. I didn’t realise Christmas puddings were cooked weeks in advance to allow them to mature to optimum taste on Christmas Day. More importantly, I didn’t know that they were supposed to be cooked on the last Sunday before Advent on what is called Stir Up Sunday. The term comes from the opening words of the collect for the day found in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (1549):
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.
This prayer was read on the last Sunday before Advent and supposedly, cooks, wives and their servants would go to church, hear the words 'Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord...', and be reminded that it was about time to start stirring up the puddings for Christmas. So, today you can get your Christmas puddings ready, but more importantly you can also make that little prayer that’s been around for hundreds of years – “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people”. That’s a great prayer for a Corps Anniversary Sunday! Stir me up, Lord!
Every blessing, Major Adrian.