Christmas Pudding

‘Stir-up Sunday’, the day on which we’re all supposed to make our puddings before they’re left to mature for Christmas Day itself, falls towards the end of November, on the Sunday after Trinity. Of course, the real stirring-up – as in, ‘Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people’ – was a religious injunction rather than a culinary one, but it’s still a good time, faith or no, to mix up the pudding. Traditionally, as well, everyone in the house is meant to give one st