Advent Day 2

My advent photo for day 2 of Julie's Scrapbook Advent Calendar is

"Making my Christmas pudding"

....a few weeks back I went along to my daughter Rachel's church with a friend to make our very own Christmas pudding. I've never made a Christmas pudding before and usually just buy an individual one as I'm the only one who really likes it.

There were over 70 ladies each armed with an apron, a mixing bowl and a wooden spoon.

We were allocated a table which was laden with tubs of different ingredients and pudding making paraphernalia as well as an easy to follow recipe.

After introducing ourselves to the other ladies on our table we set about weighing out our ingredients and adding them to the bowl.

There were a lot of ingredients to add.....

...including some sweet sherry,

the smell of which reminded me of some happy childhood memories of a friend's mum and aunt having an afternoon sherry in front of a roaring fire.

Strong arms were needed for all that stirring.

Soon it was time to fill our pudding bowls with our pudding mix

and there was a lot of discussion about whether all the mixture would fit in,

but after a lot of spooning and squishing we all managed to squeeze our mixtures into the bowls with the recommended half inch to spare!

Then it was time to add a double tin foil lid.

And a festive fabric cover complete with a quote from Matthew 1 Verse 21

With all the hard work out of the way we took our puddings and placed together them on a table.

They all looked amazing and we enjoyed a well earned drink and nibbles whilst the pastor's wife gave a talk.

It was a really wonderful evening and something I would definitely like to do again next year.

We left that night with our instructions for steaming our puddings in preparation for Christmas Day.

A whole 6 hours steaming was required the following day, with a watchful eye kept on the amount of water in the pan.

I have to say the result is a very delicious smelling pudding which is now ready for Christmas Day.

The only problem is, it smells and looks so good it seems I might just have to share!!

Day 2 of Brenda's Restoring your Joy of Christmas is all about "being silly" not only in the literal sense but as in being healthy, happy and blessed. With all the terrible things going on in world I am truly blessed with my little family. We love, we argue, we care, we share and together we are strong.