Christmas is coming

Child 4 had his first stir of the Christmas pudding tradition in our house today. I know that it's not quite stir up Sunday but we are off to my sisters on Sunday and I make her a Christmas pudding each year, so stir up Sunday became whisk up Wednesday. Not that you can really whisk up 4lb of dried fruit, Guinness and this year, because I have run out of brandy! Cointreau.

The tradition in our house is for everyone to stir the pudding mix and make a wish before I decant it into pudding bowls to be steamed in Bain Marie's overnight. The smell we will wake up to for the next three days is Christmas. You know the feeling you get when watching family Christmas movies this is exactly what our house smells like.

I often wonder what they all wish for, is it world peace or the end of famine, an IPad, a Furby, a win on the lottery or maybe a home and a family for life.

We are all so lucky in our household, it is a house full of love, laughter, noise and often disputes. As I stir I wish for many years of wishing and stirring with my children and sometime in the future, the distant future, I might add, their children.