Hi I’m Katy Blake for Spotlight.
And I’m Bruce Gulland.
All around the world, people are celebrating Christmas.
Today we look at one Christmas tradition in the United Kingdom:
the special pudding eaten on Christmas Day after the main celebration meal.
These days most people buy Christmas puddings from shops.
Today Katy and I are going to try to make our own Christmas pudding.
We have everything we need to make it so we will start.
First we put fat, breadcrumbs, spices and sugar
into a large bowl and mix them together.
Then we add and mix in fruit.
We put alcohol and eggs into a smaller bowl and beat them together.
We pour this over the other ingredients and stir.
By tradition all the family stirs the pudding.
So we have asked some of our Spotlight family,
Colin Lowther and Furaha Mussanzi, to join us in stirring the pudding.
It is a tradition to stir from east to west.
This is to remember that the kings travelled from the east to visit the baby Jesus.
Then we cover the bowl and leave it to rest overnight.
While the pudding is resting we share another Christmas pudding tradition.
For hundreds of years people stirred another item into the pudding.
Often it was a silver coin.
And everyone wanted to find the coin in their piece of pudding.
The next day we stir in the flour.
We put the mixture in a basin.
Then we cover it and tie string tightly around it.
We put the pudding in a steamer over a saucepan filled with boiling water.
We steam the pudding for 8 hours!
And then the pudding is put away until Christmas Day.
Well, we are not going to wait until Christmas Day!
But we will show you what happens on Christmas Day.
First, we have one more tradition to warn you about:
setting the pudding on fire.
By tradition, people say this represents the love and power of Jesus.
On Christmas Day the pudding is steamed for over two hours.
We put the pudding on a plate.
Then we heat alcohol in a saucepan,
pour it over the pudding and ... set fire to it!
Yay!
Now at last it is time to taste the Christmas pudding.
Do you celebrate Christmas?
What are your special traditions?
From all of us at Spotlight:
Merry Christmas!