242. The Christmas pudding (1/2)

 ‘I’m under-age, sorry.’ Baby says.

There is no arguing with that. Even on Christmas Day at dessert time. My husband and I know our roles and we are not letting the festive atmosphere take over. We look at each over across the table and slowly and simultaneously turn our heads towards Baby who is sitting at the end. We nod approvingly in unison.

‘You were mistaken, we were not offering any to you.’

‘Good to see you are reasonable, a credit to your parents.’

The four of them giggle and seize this great opportunity to avoid having to ‘try, just a little bit’ of the pudding they’ve been hearing about for over a month now. If only they knew I had spared them the whole history and Bible connections.

‘Too grown-up for me.’ Our son says. ‘Technically I’m under-age too.’

‘Erm, yes, yes, of course.’ Here we both turn our heads again and nod appreciatively. 

‘But you can triple my portion of the chocolate log.’ He adds with a big grin. ‘Please.’

Miss Hectic-Life says:

‘Vanilla log is perfect for me.’ She smiles her perfectly ironic goodie-goodie smile. I bet she uses it with her boss too. I have a sympathetic thought for this man.

Miss Muddy-Boots wants to say something now. Of course, she cannot be the one to stay silent.

‘That looks … ‘ 

I give her the mum’s stare that they’ve known through their entire childhood.

‘It looks … dark. In fact, it is deceitful, it looks like dark 70% chocolate but I know it’s not chocolate! And you know how much I love 70% chocolate!’

I give her the stare again, but briefly this time and I accompany it with a quick side glance at the chocolate log (% of cocoa unknown) and an other quick glance back up at her. She gets the message and says no more, not wanting her sparkly party dress ruined by her mother’s tossing of the fancy Yule Log complete with sugar frosted Christmas trees in her direction.

‘A real English Christmas pudding!’ My husband exclaims, sounding genuinely enthusiastic.

I was just happy that I had remembered it. I had retrieved it from the ‘dark and cool place’, carried it to the table as I would have some old wine bottle from the cellar and had carefully and delicately (that bit just for the ambiance) removed the foil, the string and the parchment paper. I had turned it over and after a few seconds of suspense it had landed softly - well, actually, heavily - on the serving dish. A moment of great stress as I thought it would burst open like some overdone haggis. It did not. It stayed firm and proud, screaming out loud for the sprig of holly but holly being toxic I had decided against it. I did not want to intoxicate the whole family. The pudding in itself was toxic enough. 

The Great Pudding Challenge was drawing to a close. Phones were allowed at table and I instructed Baby to record it all on camera. She followed me now as I took the steaming hot (in the literal sense of the term) pudding to the table and placed it next to the traditional bûches de Noël. They did look more presentable with all their edible silvery stars. Maybe I should have got some plastic holly.