No matter how hard I try to resist the Christmas traditions and trust me, there are years that I do, they always seem to pull me back into their warm embrace. This year for instance has been one of where I have valiantly tried to fight off the traditions knowing as I do that hubby may not be well enough to partake of much of the traditional food. And I have talked myself senseless about the ridiculousness of making a huge Christmas cake, christmas pudding and roasting a turkey just for son no.1 and I. And I even have a plan to do a luscious lasagne which with luck would be soft enough for hubby to eat with sides of fresh garlic breads toasted in the oven and a home made coleslaw for others.

But then I started to mooch around the cupboards and realised I had enough dried fruit for not one, but two Christmas cakes and… a christmas pudding. And a quick reconnaissance of the butter, brandy, fresh citrus fruits and eggs revealed that I had enough ingredients to make said Christmas cakes without going to the shops! Well you can’t ignore a push like that from the spirits of Christmas past and so I set to work and started the process of soaking the fruit in brandy.

There are two cakes carefully wrapped up in greaseproof paper having been lavishly anointed with brandy waiting for a couple more dosings before the next stage of the marzipan and icing. One for hubby and one for Dad.

Hubby has made the Christmas pudding today and this is resting overnight before being steamed for 8 hours. Apparently he used to make Christmas puddings at school, he made one and he was so happy with it he went on to make more and more, said his mother to me once, whilst wiping a bead of perspiration off her brow at the memory of eating them all. As it is, I have got two puddings to steam tomorrow, which I am not sure how that has happened as last year with the same recipe I only made one pudding… I think it is best not to ask questions at this point.

And some how, due to the requirement of having to spend some Tesco vouchers before they expired, and only remembering at 3.00 a.m. whereupon I made a mad cyber dash to secure a home delivery before they ran out of time. I have ended up with a turkey in my freezer, as well as a ham to boil, streaky bacon and sausages.

The Christmas spirits must have been whispering all good things to me in the dead of night, just the mince pies to go!