Curious if you mention the difference in theatre culture engendered by Panto between the UK and the US? There was a study done that found that UK theatre goers are generally quieter and better behaved than American theatre goers, especially when children are involved, and this was attributed to the 'innoculation' of pantomime. Because there are times in a Panto where the audience is encouraged to be loud and participate, it leads to audiences who are generally better behaved because they know not to make noise unless it is called for.
Sorry but America does not Celebrate Christmas (Christ's Day). It's just another Thanksgiving. The REAL reason for that is because your Government are the Puppets of the People who really run America. The Super Rich and Multinational Companies (Devil Worshippers). No! that is not my opinion. The People I work with have been Secretly Watching America for over 200 years. We know things NONE of the American People know. If they found out it would be the biggest Civil War in History. The People vs The Enemy. By the way, you neglected to mention you can make your own Christmas Pudding which is 100 times better than you can by in a Supermarket. That's if you can cook.
Regarding The Snowman, you might want to check out the Irn Bru advert which parodies it, if you haven't already, as an indication of how well known it is here, that a company can spoof it and it'll be understood! 🙂
The thing about the hats is the hilarious way they fit each different sized head.. yes, when we were kids this was the true highlight of Christmas Dinner!
Christmas pudding, the richest most over the top desert you could possibly come up with to follow a large meal, and then add brandy butter and cream !! -------- I love it.
@ I’ve just cleaned my grandma’s thruppence coins for that very purpose. I’m using my great great grandmother’s pudding recipe, including suet. I’m only able to trace the recipe back to the 1890s but I’m sure it would be even older than that.
"The world's tiniest ruler and a really bad joke" sums up the inevitable disappointment of a Christmas Cracker perfectly for me. Yet somehow it isn't Christmas without them. 😆
It gets worse: I attended a Christmas lunch this week where the brown paper crackers did not crack, but contained a piece of paper announcing that the cracker strip had been removed to render the whole thing recyclable so we could have an "environmentally responsible Christmas". Ugh!!!
Yeah, the *point* of Christmas crackers is that they are kinda disappointing, and we all collectively bond over the terrible festive dad jokes we have inevitably heard 1000 times before :P
Mulled wine, mince pies, cheese and port, scrambled eggs and smoke salmon, sherry, nuts, dates, chocolate, satsumas, to mention a few others. Honestly food and drink is the best bit of Christmas.
And insanely rich Christmas cake, as well. Similar to Christmas pudding, but baked rather than boiled, steeped in brandy and covered in icing sugar and marzipan. Often made months earlier.
The trouble is, these days the 'big tins' of Roses, Quality Street etc are just a shadow of their former selves. Time was, if you had a house full, you could pass the sweets around several times and there'd be loads left. Nowadays when you pass them around the throng, they only make three circuits and you're staring at areas of bare tin (plastic???) at the bottom. People buy them these days because it's traditional, not because they represent good value.
@@stevenmadden7268 That is actually very true on a broad range of foods. I'm a skinny guy and when I see things like "25% less fat" I just think awh no, where will I get my fats from? EDIT: I'm very much the guy who doesn't like to eat for long periods of time. I just wanna get my nutrients and carry on with my day lol. If food has less of the things I need, I'll just be consuming less and will waste away.
A lot of British companies have a 'Christmas shutdown' period, too. I, my fiancé, and most of my friends have time off work from the 20th December to the 2nd January this year! So often we plan to visit different family members over a 5-6 day period, and spend Christmas with 1 family or by ourselves
@@Arvak it actually annoys me that so many shops are open during the Yule period. Sure, it's convenient, but my feeling is that no-one should have to work on, at the very least, the 25th and 26th. Even the wee town where my mam lives tends to have the co-op open both days. I like the feeling of stocking up with stuff, knowing nowhere will be open.
@@ScottishVagabond I'm completely with you on this! Only a very small handful of very essential shops should be open on the 25th and 26th, and even then with only a skeleton crew and only for a few hours
@@ScottishVagabond It’s a Catch 22 scenario. Up until a few years ago Joe Public expected shops to open with sales etc., so the shops reciprocated. And so it snowballed into a manic shopping day. Then during the pandemic’s a lot of retailers opted to shut down on Boxing Day and have continued to do so. When I started in retail we were shut Boxing Day then for a lot of years were open. We’ve now reverted to shutting down so staff get a decent break and can enjoy Christmas.
For a long time a part of the run up to Christmas was captains of Industry and Tory MPs complaining about about the loss of productivity entailed by closing factories for a whole week or more from Xmas to New Year. However, when I lived in London, I would frequently see Rolls Royces driving around the streets EXCEPT that most of them disappeared by mid-December and did not reappear until mid-January. The boss class obviously takes a whole month off for Christmas.
@@ScottishVagabondAbsolutely, nowhere should be open those two days. I feel similarly about Sundays. It's a question of life quality. The problem is we all like the convenience of shops being open but we really should be able to plan so it's not necessary. It amuses me when there's a bank holiday Monday and people go shopping crazy as if preparing for some sort of apocalypse 😄
Sitting at the panto for the very first time must have been mind blowing! It is very difficult to describe, but once you've seen one or two you know EXACTLY what to expect! I still have very vivid memories of some of the pantos I went to as a kid.
The best way I found to explain it to my yank friend was "Panto is a low-brow comedic theatrical play, where the acting is mostly bad, the writing is mostly stupid, it's full of british cultural references, has a lot of audience participation, it has slapstick humour for the kids and more risque implication and innuendo that the kids wont understand, and it's one of the very few things that crosses the class divide here. Everybody involved knows it's "bad", but we all go along with it and join in anyway, because it's great fun." I took her to the Cinderella panto at my local rep, and to say she was confused and dumbfounded by the whole experience would be an understatement. 😂
As a Brit who's always loved Christmas pudding, my favourite part of it is that all of the people who don't like it give me their portion so I get extra! 😂
but do you find any silver tanners? :-) (that's a very old fashioned six pence piece that was put in the pudding for the finder to spend after Christmas and start the New Year more prosperous)
I didn't read ALL the comments, but nobody seems to have mentioned that the Christmas pudding is brought to the table ON FIRE, with brandy being ladled over it to keep it going until it is set down to be cut up. There should be a small coin (carefully washed and traditionally a silver sixpence) in the pudding and giving luck to the person in whose portion it is found. The pudding is usually served with brandy butter and a sweet white sauce. The portion should be small as it is very rich and comes at the end of a huge meal... Personally, I prefer Christmas cake.
@@flotinaway7 we had silver threepenny pieces which my mother always ensured we all got one in our pudding.We then had to hand them back and got normal thrupenny piece instead and the silver ones put away for the next year.
We make our own crackers from cardboard tubes (finished toilet rolls or kitchen rolls) wrapped in left over Christmas wrapping paper. The snaps are available from Amazon and the tubes are just the right size for a miniature of gin or whisky for the adults or a small toy and a chocolate for the kids. Everyone pitches in to make one for someone else in the family and the kids cut Christmas hats from leftover wrapping paper. So much more fun than shop bought.
More people are doing this sort of thing, can be really good for some local businesses too if they make suitable products, they can make their own crackers.
I'm with you. I have never understood why people actually hate, Brussel Sprouts. Even when younger, I loved them. Especially slathered in butter, with a sprinkling of pepper. 😋 Mmmmmmmmmm.........
While this is the English version, it isn’t unique, a friends Dad had been a professional in the Canadian Football League, who after his career had chosen to stay in Canada. There was actually a group of them who had done the same, all of them originating from the 'southern states'. It wasn't brussel sprouts though, it was fiddlehead greens. Which are possibly even less lovely than Brussel sprouts. But they couldn’t imagine thanksgiving without them, so every year they had a box of them flown in by courier
"Midnight" Mass has crept earlier and earlier in the evening recently. I remember it being at midnight and needing bouncers on the doors to keep the drunks in order.
@@nigelanscombe8658 I explained this to my dad about 2 days ago! And also school starts in September because they did harvests and the kids weren't needed to help on the farms anymore lol
Other British Christmas traditions: pigs in blankets, chocolate Yule log, packet stuffing, mince pies, instead of milk and cookies for Santa we leave a small glass of alcohol & a mince pie, chocolate advent calendars, Cadbury selection packs &/or chocolate coins in our stockings, the song “do they know it’s Christmas” by bandaid.
@@EmilyCheetham Me and my brother figured out Santa because we have radiators and no fireplace Poor Mum did try to cover it and say "oh he just knocks now" but when you see your dad in a suit it kinda backs it up. Gotta tell the kids but get the timing right. Too young, the magic is spoiled, too old and other kids will rip them to pieces Similar to the tooth fairy. It was brilliantly done but when I was on 20p and other kids got £1, I decided not to tell my parents when the next one came out. Sure enough, no payment
I grew up in Australia and my parents moved to New York City when I was 18. The first Christmas I spent there I made a Christmas pudding. It was really difficult to convince the butcher that I wanted suet without birdseed. I think he couldn't quite believe I was going to cook with it. The next year I bought one and took it with me from London.
@@gjh997 I know I just never heard the whole gammon on boxing or New Year’s Day specifically, but I’ve been instinctively cooking ham on new years anyway.
@@gjh997 Turkey is not in fact a very traditional meat on Christmas day, in fact its a recent addition. Why? Turkeys are not native to Europe, they are native to Central and North America. If you are talking VERY traditional, Ham, Goose and Beef are more traditional Christmas meats in the UK. Personally I do not touch turkey unless its a wild bird. Farmed turkey is dry, tasteless and crap. I would rather have a good cut of beef or a roast goose. I have not served turkey in my house for almost thirty years, and do not miss it in the slightest.
@ is say it’s a recent tradition for sure. Those meats you highlight were more common before for sure. Most now do turkey. Ham is still very popular as a second meat
So true.... also the pudding is steamed and the cake baked. I don't like Christmas cake but I'll occasionally have a bit to be polite. However, I love Christmas pudding 😊 I like it with whipped cream. Brandy butter is something that comes into its own in sandwiches of leftovers
I love both. Usually make my own but circumstances have delayed me this year. Looked at them in the supermarket yesterday but could not bring myself to buy them as the list of ingredients was so distressing! (Only 25% fruit in the pudding whereas mine is probably 80%).
Where I live (south of England by the Sea) there's a local tradition of people running into the sea on boxing day and running back out again. I do not partake.
My family used to leave a mince pie and a glass of wine for Santa Claus and one year the next day one of the elves had forgotten his little befeathered silver hat - my dad could make anything look authentic.
Just immediately before watching this, I was showing my Chinese wife The Snowman. It chokes me up every time and I had to work to hide the emotion. I strongly identify with the little boy and it reminds me of when I was about five. The bit at the end when the narrator says “For a moment the boy thought that the adventures of the night had been nothing but a dream. But he looked in his pocket and found that the scarf that Father Christmas had given him was still there” 🥹…. Many many many years ago I rode a bicycle from London to Hong Kong. Sometimes it seems incredulous that I did that, like it was nothing but a dream. When I sometimes come across something I had with me on that trip, it reminds me that it was real…like the little boy finding the scarf.
Went to see TheSnowman with my granddaughters in Frome, with our amateur Symphony Orchestra,playing the soundtrack along with the film. Absolutely gorgeous
Years ago I read a book titled 'A Pedaller to Peking' by Christopher Hough. Have you ever thought of writing about your cycling adventure? I, for one, would be interested to read about the journey. It must have been amazing. Oh and Merry Christmas :)
@@landscapedetective4064 thank you! And Happy Christmas to you too! Funnily enough I have that very book on my bookshelf but I haven't got round to reading it yet. Maybe over Christmas. Another good friend of mine wrote a book about his cycling - "Cycling Home from Siberia" which I can recommend... I have actually written the book but it needs heavy editing - more than twice as long as it needs to be. I'm doing some heavy professional training ✈️👨✈️ at the moment but when that's over perhaps I should dust it off and finally finish it! 🙂
@@humphreywilson1125 Cheers for the reply. I'll keep an eye out for your friend's book 'Cycling Home from Siberia,' it sounds pretty intense. The furthest I've ever cycled was from the Midlands to Lands End. Not that epic a journey, but plenty of pubs on the way, and I did it in the summer so it was relatively easy going. I was once told by a writer that you should first write your book with your heart, then rewrite it with your brain! Sounds like you've achieved the first stage already. Good luck with the editing.
WHAT?! My kids and I all know The Snowman very well and have seen it many, many times! We live in the United States. I think that one depends on the family. It's based on a book, so I think if you're a family that frequents the public library, like ours does, you'll probably be familiar with it no matter where you live.
I will be in an orchestra playing the Snowman soundtrack live 6 times this year, with a chorister singing walking in the air and the film projected behind us.
When she said snowman I thought she actually meant that Americans don't build snowmen lol I built one in June once. Was a really weird summer's day I guess!
@@martineyles Isn't that one of the most difficult things to play? I've been told so. You're a hero for doing the same thing 6 times, it would drive me mad.
@alisonwilson9749 Out of all the other instruments I tried to play in my time, I found it the easiest. Piano and Guitar require too much multitasking to play many notes at once. Also, only 4 valves makes there less to memorise, which suits my brain better than a woodwind instrument. Not sure I have the lips for trumpet or lungs for Tuba. Basically it's the Goldilocks instrument for me - just right. I don't believe the hype about easiest or hardest instruments, just the instrument that most suits the player. 6 times is OK, it's quite a fun couple of days (3 shows per day with breaks). I'm quite happy doing a week of a show with an amateur theatre group too. That's the most repetitive things get for an amateur player who gets maybe 2 paid gigs a year. I'm glad I'm not a pro working the West End, because they play the same show for weeks or months on end, and that would drive me insane.
I just want to thank you kalyn for another year of great original content and wish you and your family a great christmas and the best new year! keep up the great work Lass lol!
Yeah, I like it, especially with brandy butter, but what I can't stand is Christmas cake... Horrible hard, overly sweet icing and too much thick, yellow marzipan - bleugh!
"On Christmas" makes it sound like it's a single day (which in the US, it is) - mind you, Americans also say "on weekends" whereas Brits are more likely to say "at weekends" (but I've noticed "on" creeping into British usage).
@@Paul2377 Merry Christmas, happy new year. Although it doesn't really matter because merry and happy are similar enough in meaning. I probably say both.
I just wanted to show appreciation for how you pronounce my home city of Birmingham 😊 You didn't say BirmingHAM the way most Americans do and I appreciate it. Thank you!
I love Christmas pudding with brandy sauce. My wife not so much so I usually end up eating half of hers as well. Actually, we buy two, one for Christmas Day and one for Easter Monday. There are so many traditions around Christmas pudding such as everyone taking a turn to stir the mixture prior to cooking and having to stir in a particular direction to honour the three wise men.
I remember the stiring .. it physically hurt my arms and hand to stir ... hated that slightly less than being expected to eat it and say how lovely it was
You missed out the afternoon walk in the park, because it will be quiet, and find out the car park is full and most of the population had the same thought.😂
@@TheFatwelder I like finding a bench in the distance with a friend and smoking a cigar lol I never normally smoke them, but my grandad always bought my dad cigars, and he doesn't like them so I smoked them instead. But well away from the house
My grandparents many years ago when I was a kid in the 80's and 90's used to make their own Christmas Pudding, and it was lovely. They used to put old genuine Silver coins in the pudding mix and when you found a coin my Grandpa would exchange the old silver coin for new money. I miss those puddings and I miss my grandparents 🙂
I'm from Canada (older), and my mom made her own pudding and served it with butterscotch sauce and ice cream. It was delicious that way. Interestingly, we put coins in birthday cakes, not Christmas pudding. We seem to have had a lot of foods in common with Britain.
In Norway, what the British call "christmas crackers" are not really used that much during yule, but on new years eve and the 17th of May (national day). They are common but not ubiquitous. Also seen on birthdays (especially kids birthdays). There is not a toy inside ours though, just the joke. Some will have a super thin paper crown you can unfold and wear, this variant is more popular in kids birthday parties but also occasionally show up on new years eve. We call it a "smellbonbon", "smell" meaning "bang" or "boom".
We have a Christmas tradition with our Christmas pudding I always buy two and keep them for next year so they’re a year old when we have them they mature beautifully 😂
We used to have one that was passed around the family every year, (when it came to Christmas Dinner we had always eaten too much and couldn’t face the pudding) it was passed around year after year, until last year when we ate it! (I think we had passed it around for about seven yearsLOL😅)
You need to pour brandy up its bottom in the few weeks leading up to Christmas and then an extra dose of brandy all over it on Christmas dinner and set fire to it - take care and have a damp tea towel to hand in case of emergencies.
Regarding the Christmas turkey/ham: I'm in the UK and my family will have turkey on Christmas Day and then a glazed ham on Boxing Day, along with leftovers from the Christmas dinner the night before, which are often mixed up together into bubble and squeak.
We usually have ham rolls in the morning while opening presents with our cups of tea, then turkey (though not always, sometimes we'll get a capon or some other bird) for dinner. Bubble and squeak with the leftover cold cuts is mandatory on boxing day.
Not just Boxing day: most companies (except retail) close down around midday on Dec 24th, and don't re-open until Jan 2nd. Not a lot of work ever gets done on Christmas eve, either! Many companies have an official (or unofficial) Christmas party on Christmas Eve, with food, alcohol, and maybe party games.
Lots of companies put their Christmas party on a Thursday as in theory it makes people behave. I had mine at the beginning of December and had to lie down the morning after. There as one of my (more foolish) colleagues went into the office and spent the whole day shaking.
Before we started having turkey on Christmas Day in the UK it used to be geese. There was a rhyme: "Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in the old man's hat. If not a penny a ha'penny will do. If not a ha'penny then God bless you." The God bless you was the official version, but it was often substituted with a raspberry (a fart noise) "to you". These days a lot of people are turning their backs on turkey because turkey meat is boring. I'm all for going back to goose, but all sorts of roasts are used. It's been years since I had turkey.
We always recited the rhyme as "If you haven't got a ha'penny then God bless you." ie You were so poor as to not even have a ha'penny and you are just as destitute as the old beggar looking for a penny. Never ever heard it used in a derogatory manner, but that might just be my age.
Turkey meat didn't used to be boring. Traditionally it was served with both the breast (white meat) and the wings and legs (dark meat). It's the only animal that gives a reasonable amount of each type of meat in the same roast. However, these days it's very hard to get a complete turkey, and when served the white meat only I agree it is boring
@trueriver1950 the white meat can be improved by stuffing under the skin with butter, herbs, etc or a really good pork & bacon stuffing. It should also be cut very thin, served with the dark meat and the fat stuffing, and gravy.
The King's Speech (formerly The Queen's Speech) to the Commonwealth. You have to finish your lunch by 3pm and then gather round the TV set. As youngsters we used to mock it, but as we get older it brings a tear to the eye as we remember Christmases of old.
I've seen people go to London Christmas Market to make a program. There is a place there selling Christmas pudding that 1 woman makes and are sold in Harrods. The camera crew and the presenters didn't like Christmas pud. They tried it, and every single one LOVED it. Insisting that it tasted absolutely nothing like the Christmas pud they hate. Home made ones take months, and will be as good if done right. ❤ from Northeast England ❤️
I suspect most people don't like the candid peel, but having never tried a Chirstmas pud without it, don't realise that is the issue. However, for a lot of people it is just far too rich. Personally I love it.
@@nlwilson4892 I think it's a dislike we pick up as kids. We hear so many say it's horrible before we even try it. There is an up side. I get all the Christmas pud to myself 😁
@@rp1692 we here in Canada (at the time technically still Britain) supposedly had our first Thanksgiving in 1578 before the US.had their first Thanksgiving in the 1620s.
My Christmas growing up was magical. In the morning we would find our filled stockings at the end of our beds. Who doesn't love presents? Then after Christmas dinner we would open the presents from each other that we had put under the Christmas Tree. Who doesn't love more presents? Then for our evening meal, we would go to my great-grandmothers house, all the extended family would come, aunts, uncles, cousins etc. The meal would all be homemade, scones, jam, sausage rolls, sandwiches (even the bread and butter were homemade) Then we would all crowd into the other room where a Christmas Tree was in the centre of the room. We would all hold hands, walking around the tree singing Christmas Carols. When I was very little, the tree had real candles on it instead of fairy lights. The rule was, we had to keep singing till the candles went out. Later on we had electric lights Then, we would all hand out presents to our extended family members. Who doesn't love even more presents? Then, it was supper time. More sausage rolls, warm mince pies and hot chocolate/ovaltine/horlicks or tea/coffee. Then home to bed. A truly amazing Christmas Day. We continued this tradition until my great grandmother passed away in 1982
When I was a child we opened all our presents on Christmas morning after mass. My cousins always used to do presents after dinner, though. One year we went over to theirs after Christmas dinner and they'd just started the present opening. They insisted on giving one present out at a time and everyone watched each person open each gift, along with much "oohs" and "ahhs". I swear it took several hours. I was reaching for the sherry halfway through...
My Guyanese MiL used to bake a Christmas cake during the summer before Christmas that was a typical dense fruit cake. However, from the moment it came out of the oven it had good Demerara Rum drizzled over it all the way through to December, by which time it had consumed about 1ltr of the drink. This cake was then warmed up at the end of the Christmas lunch and eaten as us Brits eat Christmas pud. The point was that the intensity of the rum turned the cake into something special, which you can't get by pouring alcohol over it on the day.
I do that !! I baked my cakes in the beginning of September and I have been feeding them rum and brandy since ! They will be beautifully boozy when I give them for gifts at Christmas.
2:08 A proper Christmas Pudding is not spongey as the recipe should contain hardly any flour. If you have tried Christmas Puddings that seem spongey then they were probably bought in a shop rather than home made. I make my Christmas Puddings from scratch every year on Stir Up Sunday (the last Sunday before Advent)
Tobes mate, I respect it! However, ours is from Saino's this year... not the cheapest one, mind. Couldn't be having that. My mum makes her own Christmas cake, though. And yes I'll smash some down on Christmas day evening despite knowing I don't really have any room left.
Christmas pudding - my mother used to make these, and we had silver sixpences hidden in it which was considered huge luck if you had one in your piece. Of course my mother made sure we all got one, and the excitement of finding one meant we picked up on the pudding thing as well. I hated it though, and I hated the brandy butter that was served with it. Roll on to when I moved to Australia and went to a Christmas meal where a pudding was served. This time with icecream and a splash of Masarla wine. and that is how we ate it until my children were young and turning up their noses, even when the pudding was flaming or decorated with lit sparklers. Then my sister turned up with her special icecream made by mixing a cold cooked pudding with clotted cream icecream whipped double cream and a splash of Cointreau, frozen into a bombe in a lined round bowl. The children loved it and we have it every year now but also with a normal cooked one on hand as their tastes have matured.
It amused me when she mentioned Christmas Pudding being an acquired taste. I totally agree! I never liked it as a child but it was tradition so I'd accept my duty and eat it. But after years of eating it... I really enjoy it now! 😂 I think, in general, we Brits are a big fan of dried fruits. It's just quintessentially Christmas!
While turkey may be the current tradition at Christmas, I prefer tne precursor to it, a goose. I also love all tne things with loads of dried fruit in them that we get at Christmas, the pudding, tne cake and the mince pies, all things that were so rich that you didn’t need a lot to feel full afterwards. It was also an additional level of preservation, Christmas cake lasts for months (unless someone like me is around)
I love Goose and wouldn't want turkey as treat meal, its not a family favourite. But one year I was 'doing' Christmas dinner for rather a large number of family and did a suckling pig, which was very nice.
In the times of old going back to the Dickensian times the average person couldn't afford turkey and instead had goose on Christmas day. I find it annoying that any adaption of Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol" they adapt it to the American version of Christmas by showing families sitting down to turkey dinner and not goose. Another takeover of British tradition with American.
@@bethramorgan3620 I refuse to touch turkey. Modern farmed turkey is grown too fast, its meat is bland and far too lean for a bird that size so even properly cooked its too dry. Heaven help you if you overcook it slightly, or do not baste it properly. Goose is definitely a much better option. The best thing about goose as well is goose fat is by far and away the best fat for cooking your roast potatoes in. Even if I am cooking something other than goose for Christmas I will buy goose fat specifically for the roast potatoes. The most interesting meat I have had over Christmas was reindeer. Telling the kids i was serving Rudolph did not go down quite so well though :D
I bought a goose one year and it was a total disaster. It was massive, and cost way more than a turkey, and there was damn-all meat on it for three of us, and what little there was fatty and tasteless. Never again.
Shop bought Christmas puddings do tend to be a bit rough. Even the good shop bought puds are a shadow of a homemade one. Same deal with Christmas cake, got to be homemade to get a proper one.
I'm a Brit stuck in the USA, and I really miss a British Christmas, especially my late Mum's Christmas CAKE! (We have ham on thanksgiving, Turkey at Christmas)
Christmas day has always been a little different for me as it's my birthday. Growing up, my parents always made sure Christmas presents were wrapped in Christmas paper and birthday presents always wrapped in birthday paper, we would have a traditional Christmas dinner and at teatime the birthday cake would come out. Obviously I couldn't have a birthday party with friends so my parents would hold a big bonfire party and all my friends would come to that, bringing there own fireworks and homemade food. We had quite a big extended family and they would all drop by on Christmas day so I never felt like I was missing out on anything.
You forgot mince pies. My niece is married to an American and while living here just before Christmas she asked to and do some shopping as she was working and he was not, she wrote a list and on the list was mince meat meaning fruit mince for making mince pies. She came home and made the pastry and looked for the mince meat and could not find it ……. where is the mince in the fridge he said why is it in the fridge she said that’s where you put meat he said, he had bought mince beef, of course he didn’t now about fruit mince meat. One of the many mixups.
As a German I was very happy about the idea of tasty little meat pies, only to be extremely disappointed to be greeted with a sickly sweet candied fruit mixture. 😶 Unsurprisingly a bit of culinary research showed up that 'mince' pies back in the day DID have actual mince in them, usually either beef or mutton, with the addition of some dried fruit and spices. I found an original recipe and now make those every Xmas.
Unlike the US, the UK does not have the tradition of Homecoming. Although alluded to in a few American movies or TV shows, until you have seen it up close and personal, it’s difficult to believe what a huge event it can be. In large cities it may be somewhat obscured by the scenery, but in many American towns and cities, Homecoming is the event of the year. You cannot get a hotel room for a week before or until the week following. Every business has signs up welcoming people, diners and restaurants are packed, billboards have signs up, it’s a week long party, and generally a big parade on the weekend. It’s a little bit weird and a little fascinating.
Yeah but no one gets too wrecked because they don't want Christmas day with a hangover. So generally it's a nice evening because everyone's a bit merry but few get bladdered and embarrass themselves. Well, mostly.
The thing is with Christmas puddings and mince pies is a massive difference between good ones and bad ones. A good age aged soaked repeatedly in alcohol is the best sort of Christmas puddings.
@@tomer4566 But you need the brandy custard sauce (heated) to pour over it (kiwi here. Poms might be different (eat it without the brandy custard), but WE have standards :))
The pantomime is a piece of living history, a play with traditions from medieval times. Everything about it has its roots in commedia del arte and the mystery plays. It is fantastic to know that they are still going.
She rather missed the point. They are generally traditional fairy stories like Grimm or Andersen, and are directed at the children. However, they are family shows, so there are often double entendres and jokes that the grown-ups get that the children will not.
My Nanna (maternal grandmother) used to make xmas puddings and put old silver six pences (wrapped in greaseproof paper) in to it. Us kids use to obviously hope we'd get one. This was in the 1960s and they were still able to be spent.
I have a stack of old silver sixpences and silver threepence pieces that belonged to my husband's Nana they were used for Christmas pudding and cakes, it's a wonderful no-one choked to death on the threepence ones they're really tiny.
Every Christmas time here in the UK I enjoy having Christmas Pudding it's delicious & I think once you try it every year you'll love it! Happy Holidays Kalyn! 🎅🎄❤💚
Christmas pudding is one of the best things about Christmas: hot on Christmas Day then cold on Boxing Day and for as many days after as you can keep others from eating it. I do remember Christmas before The Snowman so it may be an age thing.
Christmas Puddings, traditionally had a silver sixpence baked into them. This was when there were still sixpences and they were still made of silver. Whoever got the sixpence in their portion, got to keep it as well as having good luck.
The first official King Charles III coin issued by the Royal Mint was a silver sixpence specifically designed to go in Christmas puddings (though I doubt that many did).
In the 1960's, sixpence coins were the norm, but traditionalists said it should be a silver thruppence. Those were almost extinct and had to be carefully preserved to do their Christmas duty. In that era the tooth fairy brought a sixpence.
I shall be eating goose this Christmas day, which is much more a traditional roast than turkey. The latter gained popularity because it was much cheaper. However, I should add that because goose was expensive, then before the popularity of turkey a chicken was common. In addition, a ham was common in addition to the turkey, goose or chicken.
And goose is much nicer than turkey :) We're having beef this year, but we often have venison. Some years we have goose but never turkey because nobody likes it.
Goose is still very common as a festive bird in Germany. Traditionally you have it with potato dumplings, sweet red cabbage and fried apple rings, and a rich gravy. Oddly enough our family (German) has Beef Wellington most years.
@@diarmuidkuhle8181 we have Christmas spiced red cabbage every year! Half my family is German though. We used to delight in getting a visit from both St Nicholas on the 6th and Father Christmas on the 24th :P
@@TheEulerID Turkey was actually really popular from the 1600s to the release of 'A Christmas Carol', especially (as you say) due to its fattened size and relative cheapness. Dickens ultimately made goose popular again, but once again cheapness brought the Turkey back into fashion in the mid 20th Century. Guessing the demand went up during the War due to American soldiers billeted here for Thanksgiving. We have Goose most years because it's so tasty and because the fat that comes off it is perfect for roasting the tatties in, but when we have a lot of people for Christmas, an especially large Turkey is usually better. Harder to cook well, though...
About not visiting family on Christmas Day - not every family owns a car and public transport (in London at least) closes down on Christmas Day both to give workers the day off, or to carry out track works, so if you want to visit family it often involves an overnight stay. This can also involve matching pyjamas, and staying in your pyjamas all day.
My father was born in 1899 and his mother's family came from Liverpool. She apparently prepared what we called plum pudding. When my sister tried to make it my father was able to give her some suggestions that the printed recipe didn't have. I am not a big fan of it, but I have had it a few times in my life.
@@jeromemckenna7102 Charles Dickens wrote about the plight of the working classes and the poor. William Shakespeare wrote about the establishment, lords and royalty.
My American colleague couldn’t believe we light our Christmas pudding. Warm a spoon of brandy over a flame, light it and pour over the pudding while singing we wish you a merry Christmas 😊
My Dad would go to his golf club to have a drink with his friends whilst my Mum prepared Christmas dinner. When he came back we would go to my Gran's (his mother), get presents from her and bring her back home for dinner/lunch. All my other grandparents were dead by the time I was 3. We would have some other friends and relatives over for dinner, particularly those who would otherwise be alone.
I believe that goose was the traditional Christmas meal until _A Christmas Carol_ in which turkey was used as an extra special celebration because it's bigger. Goose is tastier, though. And ham for Christmas is not unknown.
I acquired the taste of Christmas pudding as a child and love it, especially with crème fraiche to counteract the sweetness. We don't call it 'the holidays' but Christmastime which covers several days or even weeks!
I’ve always loved The Snowman. Also love Christmas pudding/mince pies & mulled wine. As I’m in Australia, I only have the mince pies & make Summer pudding as a lighter alternative especially if it’s hot (35 degrees today🥵).
I alwYs found thst pantomime suits 9:55 all ages as the naughty jokes and political jokes go right over the heads of the chily who absolutely adore the screaming ' He's behind you!'
I think panto is a modern version of one of those very old winter traditions like Feast of Fools or an Abbott of Unreason: it turns decorum topsy-turvy in a controlled way. The audience interaction follows a formal pattern so everyone knows how to behave, the characters are all stock ones, the plot will be 100% familiar. It probably seems chaotic if you’re not used to it, but really it’s the closest you’ll get to a ritual outside a church!
I think it is worth pointing out that every kid goes to panto in the UK and at some age they find out about drag giving us an entirely different idea of what drag is about to our US counterparts.
From UK live in Cincinnati. They played the snowman last year in a large Theater. With the Cincinatti pops live sold out. Audience could all be British but agree not so well known.
Christmas pudding is basically a bread pudding made with grated dried bread, flour, suet, soft brown sugar, and all the left over dried fruit, figs, dates and nuts from last summer and autumn, all soaked in alcohol, usually brandy, but sometimes rum, and spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg. My grandparents would make the pudding in February, and leave it soaking in brandy in a foiled pudding basin sealed in an airtight tin until Christmas, where it would be cooked under pressure for a couple of hours. Stick a sprig of holly in the top, pour brandy over the top, set it on fire, and carry it into the darkened dining room while the whole family sang 'we wish you a merry Christmas... and a happy new year' until the flames burned out.
My grandmother, born in 1890, always made 3 puddings. One was for Christmas day, one for new year's day and the last for Easter. They were made on 'stir up Sunday' about 6 weeks before Christmas.
For those who are from or have spent time in the UK, the following from Kalyn's list will be familiar. "He's behind you!!" and "we're walking in the air."
In the 60s, I worked with a lovely girl from Munich. Her English boyfriend took her to a pantomime, and she was horrified when he shouted at the actors, on the lines of: "Oh, no, he's not!" *"Oh, yes, he IS!"* As she thought they would get thrown out! But she said once she'd got over the shock, she thoroughly enjoyed herself!
The best Christmas puddings are the ones I made 10 years ago, without the nuts and with plenty of fruit and some alcohol to bring out the fruitiness. Sadly I haven't had the time and energy to pull it off well recently. Also the best trifles were from back then. These desserts definitely beat Christmas cake, which is much drier and has the added horror of marzipan (something which I never understood why I didn't like until after many years I discovered it was made of Almonds, which suddenly explained everything!).
I've been making Christmas puddings for over 40 years. If it's dense and heavy, it's badly made. A Christmas pudding should be moist and rich, and the quality of the ingredients matters enormously. It is very rich and fruity, and probably won't suit the palate of someone who only likes beige food, especially if you don't like things like fruit cake, but Christmas pudding isn't a cake, it's a suet pudding.
Boxing Day is very British because it was the day the rich (landed gentry, nobles etc) gave boxes (of whatever) to their servants, the parish poor and similar. Now, it is visiting time and walking time (all that food from yesterday) and ham, pickles with lots of leftovers.
Certainly its name is very British, but Ireland has it too, just under a different name - as do Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, and several other places. The idea of extending Christmas to two days (two and a half if you count Christmas Eve) is actually quite widespread across Europe.
At one time goose was the traditional bird of choice, with sage & onion stuffing, served with apples in some form, either baked or in the form of apple sauce. There was not as much meat on it as turkey but it is juicier with a lot of subcutaneous fat which was prized for roasting potatoes and even as a chest rub if you had a cold! It has far more flavour than turkey which, unless carefully cooked can be dry. Brining or butter spread under the skin of the breast can help in this regard. My family would serve boiled or baked gammon to accompany the turkey to give it a bit more oomph. It was stuffed with forcemeat, i.e., thyme, lemon & parsley at the rear end and sausage and chestnut stuffing at the neck opening. If it wasn't buttered it was given a covering of pork skin with a good layer of adherent fat, removed towards the end of the cooking time so that the turkey breast could brown. My mother's Xmas pudding recipe was delicious and much less dense than most. It was mixed with both stout & a slug of whiskey. It was served with brandy better ( not liked by me!) or clotted cream or, my favourite, double cream flavoured with brandy or amaretto. In the WW2 and post war period, when proper cream was not widely available, a brandy sauce accompanied the pudding, a simple white sauce made with milk, butter, sugar and brandy. On Boxing Day, slices of the pudding were sometimes placed in a shallow oven dish and topped with custard enriched with an egg yolk and baked for a short while. The cold turkey or goose was served with bubble and squeak, i.e., a fried mixture of the left over vegetables, mainly sprouts & potato plus pickles chutney or whatever or salad. As well as the traditional Roses chocolates gleaming dates in their rectangular boxes with rounded end and mixed nuts in their shells appeared. I have vivid memories of playing cards sticking to my date sticky fingers while playing gin rummy. The smells were wonderful, which were topped of with aroma of my father's special Xmas cigar. When my parents got older and there were fewer attendees, they liked to have their festive meal on the evening of Xmas Eve and, more often than not have a brace or two of pheasants with all the old-fashioned trimmings, thyme & parsley stuffing, diced roast potatoes with rosemary & garlic, fried crumbs, spicy red cabbage and watercress.
I am so sorry for Americans they don't have Christmas Pudding. It is essential to a great christmas dinner. I make it from the recipe to my own mother used from 1946
Having spent Christmas in New York a few years ago at an air b&b, getting what we Brits consider to be Christmas Day dinner was really difficult. We did have to swap a few things out that we just could not get and the cost of the items there was really frightening.
If Christmas pudding is an acquired taste then I acquired it at the first mouthful ! A great favourite, especially given one waits all year for it. As for turkey, sure it's a popular Xmas choice, but when I was a kid, chicken was more expensive and an Xmas treat. Now other fowl are options too. We're having partridge this year, last year it was duck. So there are lots of possible variations.
Thank you clarifying the whole turkey thing. I always used to wonder how Americans can eat turkey again less than a month later. Your experience with panto sounds so cute and funny. My sister-in-law (not American but grew up different) was equally flabbergasted the first time we took her.
May I be pedantic. If something is done ON purpose If something is done ON time ON shows a deliberate act If something happens BY coincidence. If something happens BY accident BY is like, by the way, a vague, so not deliberate, thing Saying It happened ON accident 😮 Americans say that, and it hits me every time. Pedantic I know, but STOP BLOODY SAYING IT 😂 ❤ from Northeast England ❤️
Not all Americans say that but it seems to be quite common on the internet. As is: ON Christmas. That should be either 'on Christmas Day' or 'at Christmas'. They also say 'New Years' which should be 'New Year's Day' (pervading these shores lately). Lastly, which is becoming far too common for my liking: 'quite the'. I still say 'quite a' and I correct it mentally every time I hear it.
Also in the subject of panto, it’s common for a Z-list celebrity or someone who used to be famous to have a part. Bonus points if the posters say where you might recognise that person from. For instance, if you went to see Cinderella at the Swindon Wyvern, it’d say “and introducing TV’s Richard Hammond as Buttons”.
Oh young lady it’s so good to see you exploring the UK Christmas rituals, I know it’s different from the things you grew up with but you have slotted in here beautifully and we are better for having a dual citizen here. Hopefully it just gives you more things to look forward to over this time. Merry Christmas oh and watch out for gentlemen bearing mistletoe….
Everyone eats Christmas pudding wrong - cook it the proper way, have a tiny bit if you have to, for 'tradition', on Xmas day, then on boxing day, cut it into finger thick slices, about the size of the palm of your hand and sear-fry them in brandy butter, or butter and a teaspoon of sugar then serve hot with cream and/or brandy butter - the thick, heavy texture of the pudding changes completely and becomes almost 'fluffy' with a caramelised sugar crunch...
Interesting that in some US states, laws are being proposed that would ban any kind of cross-dressing performances. So British panto would actually be illegal, believe it or not.
I always wonder how super conservative US people would react to pantos whenever I see how extreme they're trying to take things with their fear mongering about trans people and drag queens, it's getting worse here too but I like to think the existence of pantos means we'd never get as far as banning cross dressing
Regards Christmas Eve, I'm from West Yorkshire (Batley) as you stated we go out with friends to the pub, and at around 23.30hrs most of the pub would empty and we would relocate to the local church for Midnight Mass, after the service we would then retire to peoples homes to continue drinking the night away not getting in till around 5am on Christmas morning.
Christmas Pudding has its roots in the origins of the big meal at Christmas. The midwinter feast was something to look forward to as by the end of December the meats you had salted to preserve it was getting to their sell-by date and other things, such as preserved vegetables, were soon likely to go the same way. So the Christmas Feast made a virtue out of a necessity and had a blow out! One reason that after midwinter belts had to be tightened as food would be in short supply until the earliest harvest items of the spring. (That was also an example of turning a necessity into a virtue with the idea of a Lent fast until Easter). And as to the pudding, suet, dried fruit and sweetness (probably the last of the honey) made a good high calorie meal quite different from the bland food ahead and no doubt helped keep out the cold for a little longer! You would also no doubt kill off poultry as you wouldn't be able to keep feeding them and they go off-lay in the midwinter. The 'traditional' British Christmas pulling all of these features together, was very much the invention of Charles Dickens and, since the Queen was married to a German, it was a time at which many mid-European traditions such as the Christmas Tree (a holly branch formerly served for greenery) and the bloody Christmas card were introduced. Of course the 'turkey' was introduced to Europe in the 16th or early 17th Century and distribution and sales were in the hands of Levantine merchants, know as Turkey Merchants. So the birds became known as Turkey Merchant Birds, shortened to Turkey. Anyone for stuffing?
@@williamevans9426 Hah, I was about to make the same comment almost verbatim, then clicked to open the replies and found you'd already said the exact thing! So I'll simply say "seconded", kudos though Ian :)
You didn't mention going to church. Midnight mass is very popular (midnight on Christmas Eve). We also have all those carols. Mind you the best quote on Christmas that I've heard is 'they should keep religion out of Christmas'.
I love Carols. I'll be going down to the village on Sunday with my little camping lantern for carols on the green with a brass band even though I'm a rotten singer. Afterwards it's into the church hall for mulled wine and mince pies and a raffle. Lovely!
I'm with you about the Christmas pudding - ugh! My family always had to make an apple pie as well as the Christmas pudding just for me! But I do love the whole pouring-brandy-over-the-pudding-and-setting-it-alight before the pudding is served. We always turned the lights out and you have to pour a lot of brandy (or whisky) on it to get a good blue flame.
Even better than 'The Snowman' is Raymond Briggs other Christmas classic, 'Father Christmas' (Santa) - where we follow a grumpy old Father Christmas through his usual, yuletide routine and his regular refrain 'Bloomin' Christmas!!!'
You can find the additional Panto video and other exclusive content on More Girl Gone London, link here: www.patreon.com/c/girlgonelondon
Curious if you mention the difference in theatre culture engendered by Panto between the UK and the US? There was a study done that found that UK theatre goers are generally quieter and better behaved than American theatre goers, especially when children are involved, and this was attributed to the 'innoculation' of pantomime. Because there are times in a Panto where the audience is encouraged to be loud and participate, it leads to audiences who are generally better behaved because they know not to make noise unless it is called for.
Oh no you can't
Sorry but America does not Celebrate Christmas (Christ's Day). It's just another Thanksgiving. The REAL reason for that is because your Government are the Puppets of the People who really run America. The Super Rich and Multinational Companies (Devil Worshippers). No! that is not my opinion. The People I work with have been Secretly Watching America for over 200 years. We know things NONE of the American People know. If they found out it would be the biggest Civil War in History. The People vs The Enemy. By the way, you neglected to mention you can make your own Christmas Pudding which is 100 times better than you can by in a Supermarket. That's if you can cook.
Oh yes you can
Regarding The Snowman, you might want to check out the Irn Bru advert which parodies it, if you haven't already, as an indication of how well known it is here, that a company can spoof it and it'll be understood! 🙂
The hats you forgot the hats
The hats! Yes, gotta have a hat!
The hats are the most important bit !
they are not hats they are crowns
The thing about the hats is the hilarious way they fit each different sized head.. yes, when we were kids this was the true highlight of Christmas Dinner!
We use the hats/crowns here in Norway too! But not for yule, they are most common in kids birthday parties and occasionally appear on new years eve.
Christmas pudding, the richest most over the top desert you could possibly come up with to follow a large meal, and then add brandy butter and cream !! -------- I love it.
and don't forget to set it alight, as well.
Me too!!
And don't forget the hidden silver charms and or coins
Yes, yes.
@ I’ve just cleaned my grandma’s thruppence coins for that very purpose. I’m using my great great grandmother’s pudding recipe, including suet. I’m only able to trace the recipe back to the 1890s but I’m sure it would be even older than that.
"The world's tiniest ruler and a really bad joke" sums up the inevitable disappointment of a Christmas Cracker perfectly for me. Yet somehow it isn't Christmas without them. 😆
Napoleon? ;D
It gets worse: I attended a Christmas lunch this week where the brown paper crackers did not crack, but contained a piece of paper announcing that the cracker strip had been removed to render the whole thing recyclable so we could have an "environmentally responsible Christmas". Ugh!!!
Yeah, the *point* of Christmas crackers is that they are kinda disappointing, and we all collectively bond over the terrible festive dad jokes we have inevitably heard 1000 times before :P
You didn't mention the paper hats! Everyone has ro wear the paper hats for Christmas dinner
In Denmark crackers are used on New years Eve, not for Christmas
Mulled wine, mince pies, cheese and port, scrambled eggs and smoke salmon, sherry, nuts, dates, chocolate, satsumas, to mention a few others. Honestly food and drink is the best bit of Christmas.
And walnuts it was not Christmas without shoe and walnuts!
Don't forget Boxing day. Christmas day again but without the present pressure. That jug is for custard. Mmmm, custard.
And Stone's Ginger Wine. (And when I was a child, Turkish Delight, which I was never a huge fan of.)
And insanely rich Christmas cake, as well. Similar to Christmas pudding, but baked rather than boiled, steeped in brandy and covered in icing sugar and marzipan. Often made months earlier.
Oh yes! All of these make Christmas!
Never mentioned the big tins of roses , Quality street and other makes that are always present after the meal.
The trouble is, these days the 'big tins' of Roses, Quality Street etc are just a shadow of their former selves. Time was, if you had a house full, you could pass the sweets around several times and there'd be loads left. Nowadays when you pass them around the throng, they only make three circuits and you're staring at areas of bare tin (plastic???) at the bottom. People buy them these days because it's traditional, not because they represent good value.
Celebrations and after 8s were also a thing lol
Don’t you mean small tins these days as there just getting smaller all the time and getting dearer
@@stevenmadden7268 That is actually very true on a broad range of foods.
I'm a skinny guy and when I see things like "25% less fat" I just think awh no, where will I get my fats from?
EDIT: I'm very much the guy who doesn't like to eat for long periods of time. I just wanna get my nutrients and carry on with my day lol.
If food has less of the things I need, I'll just be consuming less and will waste away.
Not a thing for us.
A lot of British companies have a 'Christmas shutdown' period, too. I, my fiancé, and most of my friends have time off work from the 20th December to the 2nd January this year! So often we plan to visit different family members over a 5-6 day period, and spend Christmas with 1 family or by ourselves
@@Arvak it actually annoys me that so many shops are open during the Yule period. Sure, it's convenient, but my feeling is that no-one should have to work on, at the very least, the 25th and 26th. Even the wee town where my mam lives tends to have the co-op open both days. I like the feeling of stocking up with stuff, knowing nowhere will be open.
@@ScottishVagabond I'm completely with you on this! Only a very small handful of very essential shops should be open on the 25th and 26th, and even then with only a skeleton crew and only for a few hours
@@ScottishVagabond It’s a Catch 22 scenario. Up until a few years ago Joe Public expected shops to open with sales etc., so the shops reciprocated. And so it snowballed into a manic shopping day. Then during the pandemic’s a lot of retailers opted to shut down on Boxing Day and have continued to do so. When I started in retail we were shut Boxing Day then for a lot of years were open. We’ve now reverted to shutting down so staff get a decent break and can enjoy Christmas.
For a long time a part of the run up to Christmas was captains of Industry and Tory MPs complaining about about the loss of productivity entailed by closing factories for a whole week or more from Xmas to New Year. However, when I lived in London, I would frequently see Rolls Royces driving around the streets EXCEPT that most of them disappeared by mid-December and did not reappear until mid-January. The boss class obviously takes a whole month off for Christmas.
@@ScottishVagabondAbsolutely, nowhere should be open those two days. I feel similarly about Sundays. It's a question of life quality. The problem is we all like the convenience of shops being open but we really should be able to plan so it's not necessary. It amuses me when there's a bank holiday Monday and people go shopping crazy as if preparing for some sort of apocalypse 😄
Sitting at the panto for the very first time must have been mind blowing! It is very difficult to describe, but once you've seen one or two you know EXACTLY what to expect! I still have very vivid memories of some of the pantos I went to as a kid.
The best way I found to explain it to my yank friend was "Panto is a low-brow comedic theatrical play, where the acting is mostly bad, the writing is mostly stupid, it's full of british cultural references, has a lot of audience participation, it has slapstick humour for the kids and more risque implication and innuendo that the kids wont understand, and it's one of the very few things that crosses the class divide here. Everybody involved knows it's "bad", but we all go along with it and join in anyway, because it's great fun."
I took her to the Cinderella panto at my local rep, and to say she was confused and dumbfounded by the whole experience would be an understatement. 😂
Just home from watching Dick Whittington - absolutely brilliant time! 🎉
@@wilmaknickersfit Oh no it wasn't!! :)
I saw my first panto 3 weeks ago - Aladdin at Hammersmith. I loved it.
I once heard panto described to Americans as 'Vaudeville for children' 🎉😊
As a Brit who's always loved Christmas pudding, my favourite part of it is that all of the people who don't like it give me their portion so I get extra! 😂
but do you find any silver tanners? :-) (that's a very old fashioned six pence piece that was put in the pudding for the finder to spend after Christmas and start the New Year more prosperous)
How can anyone dislike Christmas pudding?
I didn't read ALL the comments, but nobody seems to have mentioned that the Christmas pudding is brought to the table ON FIRE, with brandy being ladled over it to keep it going until it is set down to be cut up. There should be a small coin (carefully washed and traditionally a silver sixpence) in the pudding and giving luck to the person in whose portion it is found. The pudding is usually served with brandy butter and a sweet white sauce. The portion should be small as it is very rich and comes at the end of a huge meal...
Personally, I prefer Christmas cake.
About half a miniature bottle of brandy (25 ml) for a 16 oz pudding is about right.
I love Christmas pudding even though its always hot at Christmas. So always have it with icecream.
And it takes forever to steam in the oven!
@@flotinaway7 Threepenny bits were silver at one time; ultimately the silver coins disappeared after WW2.
@@flotinaway7 we had silver threepenny pieces which my mother always ensured we all got one in our pudding.We then had to hand them back and got normal thrupenny piece instead and the silver ones put away for the next year.
1:04 I've NEVER heared of anyone pulling their own Christmas Cracker with themself!?
I have, but only as a euphemism...
Pulling a Christmas cracker by yourself is against the law in most UK counties.
Mr Bean
Mr Bean? Sure, but that was only on telly, not in real life.
@gopha75
Has to be the arms crossed version
We make our own crackers from cardboard tubes (finished toilet rolls or kitchen rolls) wrapped in left over Christmas wrapping paper. The snaps are available from Amazon and the tubes are just the right size for a miniature of gin or whisky for the adults or a small toy and a chocolate for the kids. Everyone pitches in to make one for someone else in the family and the kids cut Christmas hats from leftover wrapping paper. So much more fun than shop bought.
Do you do the corny jokes as well?
More people are doing this sort of thing, can be really good for some local businesses too if they make suitable products, they can make their own crackers.
@@alicemilne1444 Ha ha, no we don't. We did try one year but didn't keep it up.
I respect it, but that sounds like too much effort on top of all the present wrapping and food shopping.
When I ordered crackers this year it was hard to find ones with the snap
The saddest thing on every Christmas Day is an empty chair where someone you loved and who’s passed used to sit 😢
Brussels sprouts! People who hate them will still insist on having them with their Christmas dinner (I actually love 'em).
I'm with you. I have never understood why people actually hate, Brussel Sprouts.
Even when younger, I loved them. Especially slathered in butter, with a sprinkling of pepper. 😋 Mmmmmmmmmm.........
@@dougwilson4537 NOM!
you can't beat a good sprout.!
I hope you have them simmering!
While this is the English version, it isn’t unique, a friends Dad had been a professional in the Canadian Football League, who after his career had chosen to stay in Canada. There was actually a group of them who had done the same, all of them originating from the 'southern states'.
It wasn't brussel sprouts though, it was fiddlehead greens. Which are possibly even less lovely than Brussel sprouts. But they couldn’t imagine thanksgiving without them, so every year they had a box of them flown in by courier
Christmas Eve people do go to the pub. Then straight to Midnight Mass.
Thats what happens in my village anyway
"Midnight" Mass has crept earlier and earlier in the evening recently. I remember it being at midnight and needing bouncers on the doors to keep the drunks in order.
@@stevenosimpson wow, you must be in the most Christian place in England! 😂
Sod midnight mass. We sometimes go to one that's around 7pm on Christmas Eve. Then you can start the drinking and Christmas Eve boxes.
We always did midnight mass and got to open just ONE present before bed!
I don't think I've ever been to midnight mass 100% sober!
4:06 "You might have it off." This has a totally different meaning in the UK English ...
😂😂😂 "Diiirrrtttyyy..."
A bit of “Panto” double entendre creeping in. 😉
But likely would explain a baby boom around September.
@@davidpiper3652 Oh no it doesn't! Oh yes it does!
By the way not a fan of weird stuff like pantomimes. I'm British too
@@nigelanscombe8658 I explained this to my dad about 2 days ago!
And also school starts in September because they did harvests and the kids weren't needed to help on the farms anymore lol
Other British Christmas traditions: pigs in blankets, chocolate Yule log, packet stuffing, mince pies, instead of milk and cookies for Santa we leave a small glass of alcohol & a mince pie, chocolate advent calendars, Cadbury selection packs &/or chocolate coins in our stockings, the song “do they know it’s Christmas” by bandaid.
Chocolate oranges as well!
Well why do u think santa Claus sleeps off the rest of the year afterwards.
@@EmilyCheetham Me and my brother figured out Santa because we have radiators and no fireplace
Poor Mum did try to cover it and say "oh he just knocks now" but when you see your dad in a suit it kinda backs it up.
Gotta tell the kids but get the timing right. Too young, the magic is spoiled, too old and other kids will rip them to pieces
Similar to the tooth fairy. It was brilliantly done but when I was on 20p and other kids got £1, I decided not to tell my parents when the next one came out. Sure enough, no payment
@@IanJames-n9f
Mine claimed he came though the letterbox.
I also got in trouble for making my sister cry, when I told her he wasn't real.
@@kevinshort3943 Well that's forgivable if you were a kid too, just trying to educate her
Christmas pudding is delightful hot with ice cream. But it's an ancient dish passed down. A part of our history to be continued.
Oh not it isn't
@@GBPhilip Oh yes it is!
@@Spiklething It's behind you!
Hot or cold with custard and cream and ice-cream 😂
Brandy sauce on Christmas Day, ice cream or custard on Boxing Day.
I grew up in Australia and my parents moved to New York City when I was 18. The first Christmas I spent there I made a Christmas pudding. It was really difficult to convince the butcher that I wanted suet without birdseed. I think he couldn't quite believe I was going to cook with it. The next year I bought one and took it with me from London.
How on earth do the yanks have lovely dumplings for their stew 🤣😂
Kings speech
You were lucky to get it through the customs, then.
In England, ham (Gammon) is most often served on Boxing Day or New Years Day.
It’s funny because I’m British and I’ve never heard this…but I’ve instinctively been cooking a gammon NYE/NYD for years must be in the genes 😂
@@Look_Over_There ham and Turkey are very traditional meats on Xmas day in UK
@@gjh997 I know I just never heard the whole gammon on boxing or New Year’s Day specifically, but I’ve been instinctively cooking ham on new years anyway.
@@gjh997 Turkey is not in fact a very traditional meat on Christmas day, in fact its a recent addition. Why? Turkeys are not native to Europe, they are native to Central and North America.
If you are talking VERY traditional, Ham, Goose and Beef are more traditional Christmas meats in the UK.
Personally I do not touch turkey unless its a wild bird. Farmed turkey is dry, tasteless and crap. I would rather have a good cut of beef or a roast goose. I have not served turkey in my house for almost thirty years, and do not miss it in the slightest.
@ is say it’s a recent tradition for sure. Those meats you highlight were more common before for sure. Most now do turkey. Ham is still very popular as a second meat
In case nobody mentioned it on here: Christmas Cake is a heavy fruit cake, whereas Christmas Pudding is a heavilly fruited suet pudding.
So true.... also the pudding is steamed and the cake baked. I don't like Christmas cake but I'll occasionally have a bit to be polite. However, I love Christmas pudding 😊 I like it with whipped cream. Brandy butter is something that comes into its own in sandwiches of leftovers
You can lightly fry leftover Christmas pudding for breakfast.
And both are fab.
I love both. Usually make my own but circumstances have delayed me this year. Looked at them in the supermarket yesterday but could not bring myself to buy them as the list of ingredients was so distressing! (Only 25% fruit in the pudding whereas mine is probably 80%).
Both Infused with lots of Brandy. Lovely jubbly!
You forgot the traditional Boxing day walk! Get wrapped-up warm and walk off all the over-indulging you did on Christmas day.
And or boxing day pub trip
Americans are probably all back in work by then, poor sods.
@@chrysalis4126
😂
It's also a big day of sport, often with a full set of football league fixtures. As you say, to burn of all those calories!
Where I live (south of England by the Sea) there's a local tradition of people running into the sea on boxing day and running back out again.
I do not partake.
My family used to leave a mince pie and a glass of wine for Santa Claus and one year the next day one of the elves had forgotten his little befeathered silver hat - my dad could make anything look authentic.
What about Rudolph's carrot?
Just immediately before watching this, I was showing my Chinese wife The Snowman. It chokes me up every time and I had to work to hide the emotion. I strongly identify with the little boy and it reminds me of when I was about five. The bit at the end when the narrator says “For a moment the boy thought that the adventures of the night had been nothing but a dream. But he looked in his pocket and found that the scarf that Father Christmas had given him was still there” 🥹…. Many many many years ago I rode a bicycle from London to Hong Kong. Sometimes it seems incredulous that I did that, like it was nothing but a dream. When I sometimes come across something I had with me on that trip, it reminds me that it was real…like the little boy finding the scarf.
Dammit man now I've got something in my eye 😢
Went to see TheSnowman with my granddaughters in Frome, with our amateur Symphony Orchestra,playing the soundtrack along with the film. Absolutely gorgeous
Years ago I read a book titled 'A Pedaller to Peking' by Christopher Hough. Have you ever thought of writing about your cycling adventure? I, for one, would be interested to read about the journey. It must have been amazing. Oh and Merry Christmas :)
@@landscapedetective4064 thank you! And Happy Christmas to you too! Funnily enough I have that very book on my bookshelf but I haven't got round to reading it yet. Maybe over Christmas. Another good friend of mine wrote a book about his cycling - "Cycling Home from Siberia" which I can recommend... I have actually written the book but it needs heavy editing - more than twice as long as it needs to be. I'm doing some heavy professional training ✈️👨✈️ at the moment but when that's over perhaps I should dust it off and finally finish it! 🙂
@@humphreywilson1125 Cheers for the reply. I'll keep an eye out for your friend's book 'Cycling Home from Siberia,' it sounds pretty intense. The furthest I've ever cycled was from the Midlands to Lands End. Not that epic a journey, but plenty of pubs on the way, and I did it in the summer so it was relatively easy going. I was once told by a writer that you should first write your book with your heart, then rewrite it with your brain! Sounds like you've achieved the first stage already. Good luck with the editing.
WHAT?! My kids and I all know The Snowman very well and have seen it many, many times! We live in the United States. I think that one depends on the family. It's based on a book, so I think if you're a family that frequents the public library, like ours does, you'll probably be familiar with it no matter where you live.
I will be in an orchestra playing the Snowman soundtrack live 6 times this year, with a chorister singing walking in the air and the film projected behind us.
Lovely - what instrument do you play ?
@cathrynbagley8005 (French) Horn
When she said snowman I thought she actually meant that Americans don't build snowmen lol
I built one in June once. Was a really weird summer's day I guess!
@@martineyles Isn't that one of the most difficult things to play? I've been told so. You're a hero for doing the same thing 6 times, it would drive me mad.
@alisonwilson9749 Out of all the other instruments I tried to play in my time, I found it the easiest. Piano and Guitar require too much multitasking to play many notes at once. Also, only 4 valves makes there less to memorise, which suits my brain better than a woodwind instrument. Not sure I have the lips for trumpet or lungs for Tuba. Basically it's the Goldilocks instrument for me - just right. I don't believe the hype about easiest or hardest instruments, just the instrument that most suits the player.
6 times is OK, it's quite a fun couple of days (3 shows per day with breaks). I'm quite happy doing a week of a show with an amateur theatre group too. That's the most repetitive things get for an amateur player who gets maybe 2 paid gigs a year. I'm glad I'm not a pro working the West End, because they play the same show for weeks or months on end, and that would drive me insane.
I just want to thank you kalyn for another year of great original content and wish you and your family a great christmas and the best new year! keep up the great work Lass lol!
O no you didn’t. He’s behind you!!
Oh yes I did!
@@mandolinic Oh no you didn't
Just home from watching Dick Whittington - absolutely brilliant time! 😂
@@fomalhaut9 Oh yes I did!
(Do you want to do "Right-oh" now?)
I could eat Christmas Pudding every day of the year!
I usually stock up and have it maybe 10 times a year. Too good to restrict to just Christmas.
Yeah, I like it, especially with brandy butter, but what I can't stand is Christmas cake... Horrible hard, overly sweet icing and too much thick, yellow marzipan - bleugh!
Yep, same with mince pies.
When my mum was alive, she used to make an extra christmas pudding every year to save for me to have on my birthday in July.
great you can have mine!
A difference I always notice is Americans say “on Christmas”, British say “at Christmas”. I love all the little differences. 🇬🇧🇺🇸
"On Christmas" makes it sound like it's a single day (which in the US, it is) - mind you, Americans also say "on weekends" whereas Brits are more likely to say "at weekends" (but I've noticed "on" creeping into British usage).
'on X' is very American - she even said 'on accident' at the end there, instead of 'by accident.'
On Christmas day, at Christmas time.
Many of us also say "Happy Christmas" rather than "Merry Christmas"!
@@Paul2377 Merry Christmas, happy new year. Although it doesn't really matter because merry and happy are similar enough in meaning. I probably say both.
I just wanted to show appreciation for how you pronounce my home city of Birmingham 😊 You didn't say BirmingHAM the way most Americans do and I appreciate it. Thank you!
I love Christmas pudding with brandy sauce. My wife not so much so I usually end up eating half of hers as well. Actually, we buy two, one for Christmas Day and one for Easter Monday. There are so many traditions around Christmas pudding such as everyone taking a turn to stir the mixture prior to cooking and having to stir in a particular direction to honour the three wise men.
I like the idea of saving a Christmas pudding for Easter Monday. I might steal it off you.
My mum use to make two as well for us but she made at least 7/8 as she use to give one here and one there to friends that she said they needed them.
I remember the stiring .. it physically hurt my arms and hand to stir ... hated that slightly less than being expected to eat it and say how lovely it was
You missed out the afternoon walk in the park, because it will be quiet, and find out the car park is full and most of the population had the same thought.😂
@@TheFatwelder I like finding a bench in the distance with a friend and smoking a cigar lol
I never normally smoke them, but my grandad always bought my dad cigars, and he doesn't like them so I smoked them instead. But well away from the house
Boxing Day walks are even more popular. Last year the car park was utter carnage!
Or the afternoon kip half way through a James Bond film :-)
@@Corky341 Haha yeah with a beer and a half-eaten dry-as-Hell turkey sandwich 😃
My grandparents many years ago when I was a kid in the 80's and 90's used to make their own Christmas Pudding, and it was lovely.
They used to put old genuine Silver coins in the pudding mix and when you found a coin my Grandpa would exchange the old silver coin for new money. I miss those puddings and I miss my grandparents 🙂
My mum still makes her own :) but she doesn't put anything non edible in because she's worried about her fillings
I'm from Canada (older), and my mom made her own pudding and served it with butterscotch sauce and ice cream. It was delicious that way. Interestingly, we put coins in birthday cakes, not Christmas pudding. We seem to have had a lot of foods in common with Britain.
Yes, "silver thruppenies". My dad used to go to the bank specially to get half a dozen of them for Mum to put into the pud......
@@alanbrown9178 silver sixpences?- the thrupennies were a kind of dullish goldy colour IIRC, and much thicker.
@@alisonwilson9749 The most common Thruppeny bits were brass, but the older ones were silver, fairly rare by the 1950s, but obtainable in banks.
In Norway, what the British call "christmas crackers" are not really used that much during yule, but on new years eve and the 17th of May (national day). They are common but not ubiquitous. Also seen on birthdays (especially kids birthdays).
There is not a toy inside ours though, just the joke. Some will have a super thin paper crown you can unfold and wear, this variant is more popular in kids birthday parties but also occasionally show up on new years eve.
We call it a "smellbonbon", "smell" meaning "bang" or "boom".
We have a Christmas tradition with our Christmas pudding I always buy two and keep them for next year so they’re a year old when we have them they mature beautifully 😂
We used to have one that was passed around the family every year, (when it came to Christmas Dinner we had always eaten too much and couldn’t face the pudding) it was passed around year after year, until last year when we ate it! (I think we had passed it around for about seven yearsLOL😅)
You need to pour brandy up its bottom in the few weeks leading up to Christmas and then an extra dose of brandy all over it on Christmas dinner and set fire to it - take care and have a damp tea towel to hand in case of emergencies.
Regarding the Christmas turkey/ham:
I'm in the UK and my family will have turkey on Christmas Day and then a glazed ham on Boxing Day, along with leftovers from the Christmas dinner the night before, which are often mixed up together into bubble and squeak.
Or Turkey curry, hotpot, goulash, burgers, soup or Turkey surprise .... 🙂
We usually have ham rolls in the morning while opening presents with our cups of tea, then turkey (though not always, sometimes we'll get a capon or some other bird) for dinner. Bubble and squeak with the leftover cold cuts is mandatory on boxing day.
Yawn!
Not just Boxing day: most companies (except retail) close down around midday on Dec 24th, and don't re-open until Jan 2nd. Not a lot of work ever gets done on Christmas eve, either! Many companies have an official (or unofficial) Christmas party on Christmas Eve, with food, alcohol, and maybe party games.
Lots of companies put their Christmas party on a Thursday as in theory it makes people behave.
I had mine at the beginning of December and had to lie down the morning after. There as one of my (more foolish) colleagues went into the office and spent the whole day shaking.
Most supermarkets where I am just close a bit earlier on Xmas eve. And get loads of people ringing in sick on Boxing Day lol
Before we started having turkey on Christmas Day in the UK it used to be geese. There was a rhyme: "Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in the old man's hat. If not a penny a ha'penny will do. If not a ha'penny then God bless you." The God bless you was the official version, but it was often substituted with a raspberry (a fart noise) "to you". These days a lot of people are turning their backs on turkey because turkey meat is boring. I'm all for going back to goose, but all sorts of roasts are used. It's been years since I had turkey.
We always recited the rhyme as "If you haven't got a ha'penny then God bless you." ie You were so poor as to not even have a ha'penny and you are just as destitute as the old beggar looking for a penny. Never ever heard it used in a derogatory manner, but that might just be my age.
Duck as well I think? I'm with Iain; it's "if you haven't got a ha'penny then God bless you" - often sung in a mockney accent. I don't make the rules.
I've got duck this year, as Queen Charlotte said IIRC, a goose is too much for one, but not enough for two.
Turkey meat didn't used to be boring. Traditionally it was served with both the breast (white meat) and the wings and legs (dark meat). It's the only animal that gives a reasonable amount of each type of meat in the same roast.
However, these days it's very hard to get a complete turkey, and when served the white meat only I agree it is boring
@trueriver1950 the white meat can be improved by stuffing under the skin with butter, herbs, etc or a really good pork & bacon stuffing. It should also be cut very thin, served with the dark meat and the fat stuffing, and gravy.
This American loves ❤️ British Christmas 🎄 decor and food! Merry Christmas and Happy Christmas to all❤
The King's Speech (formerly The Queen's Speech) to the Commonwealth.
You have to finish your lunch by 3pm and then gather round the TV set.
As youngsters we used to mock it, but as we get older it brings a tear to the eye as we remember Christmases of old.
I've seen people go to London Christmas Market to make a program.
There is a place there selling Christmas pudding that 1 woman makes and are sold in Harrods. The camera crew and the presenters didn't like Christmas pud. They tried it, and every single one LOVED it. Insisting that it tasted absolutely nothing like the Christmas pud they hate.
Home made ones take months, and will be as good if done right.
❤ from Northeast England ❤️
I suspect most people don't like the candid peel, but having never tried a Chirstmas pud without it, don't realise that is the issue. However, for a lot of people it is just far too rich. Personally I love it.
@@nlwilson4892
I think it's a dislike we pick up as kids. We hear so many say it's horrible before we even try it.
There is an up side. I get all the Christmas pud to myself 😁
We go to midnight mass at church on Christmas eve
Excuse me… why do our paper hats at Christmas dinner not make the list?
Should have been mentioned with the crackers ,wearing the hat is almost more important than reading the crummy `jokes'.
@@Jill-mh2wn Crummy jokes? That's we're I get most of my material from for my stand up tours.🤪
@@anthonyholdford4041 So it`s going to be a cracker of a tour this Christmas? 🤣
@@Jill-mh2wn That one's going in !
@@Jill-mh2wn @ Thanks for the new material. Jill.😂
In the UK (and ex-colonies), Xmas Day is the equivalent of the American Thanksgiving, ie, THE day for Family to be together each year.
US Thanksgiving is actually Harvest festival, that they have twisted to their own ends.
Yes, though I'm not sure about Canada, since they have Thanksgiving over there (although a month earlier than the American one).
A normal Sunday roast is the equivalent of Thanksgiving.
Christmas Day is not the equivalent of thanksgiving! Ps, Kernow (Cornwall) is still a colony of those lovely English people!!!
@@rp1692 we here in Canada (at the time technically still Britain) supposedly had our first Thanksgiving in 1578 before the US.had their first Thanksgiving in the 1620s.
I WANT THAT CHRISTMAS PUDDING JUG!!!! Seriously, I need it
I have it. I have matching set 😅
@@catherineball5071 There's a set?! Where did you get them?
Love that jug Christmas pudding is wonderful and so is boxing day😂😂
My Christmas growing up was magical. In the morning we would find our filled stockings at the end of our beds. Who doesn't love presents?
Then after Christmas dinner we would open the presents from each other that we had put under the Christmas Tree. Who doesn't love more presents?
Then for our evening meal, we would go to my great-grandmothers house, all the extended family would come, aunts, uncles, cousins etc. The meal would all be homemade, scones, jam, sausage rolls, sandwiches (even the bread and butter were homemade)
Then we would all crowd into the other room where a Christmas Tree was in the centre of the room. We would all hold hands, walking around the tree singing Christmas Carols. When I was very little, the tree had real candles on it instead of fairy lights. The rule was, we had to keep singing till the candles went out. Later on we had electric lights
Then, we would all hand out presents to our extended family members. Who doesn't love even more presents?
Then, it was supper time. More sausage rolls, warm mince pies and hot chocolate/ovaltine/horlicks or tea/coffee.
Then home to bed. A truly amazing Christmas Day. We continued this tradition until my great grandmother passed away in 1982
Presents AFTER lunch! Blimey.
@@Casual_Gamer_Channel no no thats for the tree presents .. tiny gifts hidden as decorations ON the tree, secret santa style
@@Psylaine64 got you 👍🏻 that makes more sense!
@@Casual_Gamer_Channel Yep we always did Christmas Tree presents as well, typically small and cheaper things.
When I was a child we opened all our presents on Christmas morning after mass. My cousins always used to do presents after dinner, though. One year we went over to theirs after Christmas dinner and they'd just started the present opening. They insisted on giving one present out at a time and everyone watched each person open each gift, along with much "oohs" and "ahhs". I swear it took several hours. I was reaching for the sherry halfway through...
My Guyanese MiL used to bake a Christmas cake during the summer before Christmas that was a typical dense fruit cake. However, from the moment it came out of the oven it had good Demerara Rum drizzled over it all the way through to December, by which time it had consumed about 1ltr of the drink. This cake was then warmed up at the end of the Christmas lunch and eaten as us Brits eat Christmas pud. The point was that the intensity of the rum turned the cake into something special, which you can't get by pouring alcohol over it on the day.
I do that !! I baked my cakes in the beginning of September and I have been feeding them rum and brandy since ! They will be beautifully boozy when I give them for gifts at Christmas.
Interesting, I've just been watching a video about Guyana, the only English speaking country in South America. They still drive on the left!
I do love a nice moist rich dark fruit cake (hate xmas pud tho) so I'd be down for some of that cake!!
@Psylaine64 😂 Merry Christmas
@@Phiyedough And they have some of the best cricketer in West Indies.
2:08 A proper Christmas Pudding is not spongey as the recipe should contain hardly any flour. If you have tried Christmas Puddings that seem spongey then they were probably bought in a shop rather than home made.
I make my Christmas Puddings from scratch every year on Stir Up Sunday (the last Sunday before Advent)
I am planning on boiling mine up today. Better late than never 😂
My Wife had an aunt who used to make her Christmas pud at least a year in advance.... she had several lining the shelves in her kitchen cupboard!
My recipe has no flour at all, just fruit and ground almonds.
Homemade are so much better
Tobes mate, I respect it! However, ours is from Saino's this year... not the cheapest one, mind. Couldn't be having that. My mum makes her own Christmas cake, though. And yes I'll smash some down on Christmas day evening despite knowing I don't really have any room left.
Christmas pudding - my mother used to make these, and we had silver sixpences hidden in it which was considered huge luck if you had one in your piece. Of course my mother made sure we all got one, and the excitement of finding one meant we picked up on the pudding thing as well. I hated it though, and I hated the brandy butter that was served with it. Roll on to when I moved to Australia and went to a Christmas meal where a pudding was served. This time with icecream and a splash of Masarla wine.
and that is how we ate it until my children were young and turning up their noses, even when the pudding was flaming or decorated with lit sparklers. Then my sister turned up with her special icecream made by mixing a cold cooked pudding with clotted cream icecream whipped double cream and a splash of Cointreau, frozen into a bombe in a lined round bowl.
The children loved it and we have it every year now but also with a normal cooked one on hand as their tastes have matured.
It amused me when she mentioned Christmas Pudding being an acquired taste. I totally agree! I never liked it as a child but it was tradition so I'd accept my duty and eat it. But after years of eating it... I really enjoy it now! 😂 I think, in general, we Brits are a big fan of dried fruits. It's just quintessentially Christmas!
While turkey may be the current tradition at Christmas, I prefer tne precursor to it, a goose.
I also love all tne things with loads of dried fruit in them that we get at Christmas, the pudding, tne cake and the mince pies, all things that were so rich that you didn’t need a lot to feel full afterwards. It was also an additional level of preservation, Christmas cake lasts for months (unless someone like me is around)
I love Goose and wouldn't want turkey as treat meal, its not a family favourite. But one year I was 'doing' Christmas dinner for rather a large number of family and did a suckling pig, which was very nice.
In the times of old going back to the Dickensian times the average person couldn't afford turkey and instead had goose on Christmas day.
I find it annoying that any adaption of Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol" they adapt it to the American version of Christmas by showing families sitting down to turkey dinner and not goose.
Another takeover of British tradition with American.
@@bethramorgan3620 I refuse to touch turkey. Modern farmed turkey is grown too fast, its meat is bland and far too lean for a bird that size so even properly cooked its too dry. Heaven help you if you overcook it slightly, or do not baste it properly.
Goose is definitely a much better option. The best thing about goose as well is goose fat is by far and away the best fat for cooking your roast potatoes in. Even if I am cooking something other than goose for Christmas I will buy goose fat specifically for the roast potatoes.
The most interesting meat I have had over Christmas was reindeer. Telling the kids i was serving Rudolph did not go down quite so well though :D
I bought a goose one year and it was a total disaster. It was massive, and cost way more than a turkey, and there was damn-all meat on it for three of us, and what little there was fatty and tasteless. Never again.
Water fowls tend to be a lot tastier.
Shop bought Christmas puddings do tend to be a bit rough. Even the good shop bought puds are a shadow of a homemade one. Same deal with Christmas cake, got to be homemade to get a proper one.
Absolute bull!!
I'm a Brit stuck in the USA, and I really miss a British Christmas, especially my late Mum's Christmas CAKE! (We have ham on thanksgiving, Turkey at Christmas)
What do you eat with the ham? I can't imagine veg and gravy lol. Is it more like a cold meal or hot?
Nothing stopping you from making one…just don’t forget to start it with the sprouts at the end of October
Why are you celebrating thanksgiving?
I hope it was christmas cake with the firm crunchy icing? Not the fondant icing on most cakes now 😂
@@benfisher1376 a proper “royal icing” that breaks when you try to cut it…
Christmas day has always been a little different for me as it's my birthday. Growing up, my parents always made sure Christmas presents were wrapped in Christmas paper and birthday presents always wrapped in birthday paper, we would have a traditional Christmas dinner and at teatime the birthday cake would come out. Obviously I couldn't have a birthday party with friends so my parents would hold a big bonfire party and all my friends would come to that, bringing there own fireworks and homemade food. We had quite a big extended family and they would all drop by on Christmas day so I never felt like I was missing out on anything.
You forgot mince pies. My niece is married to an American and while living here just before Christmas she asked to and do some shopping as she was working and he was not, she wrote a list and on the list was mince meat meaning fruit mince for making mince pies. She came home and made the pastry and looked for the mince meat and could not find it ……. where is the mince in the fridge he said why is it in the fridge she said that’s where you put meat he said, he had bought mince beef, of course he didn’t now about fruit mince meat. One of the many mixups.
As a German I was very happy about the idea of tasty little meat pies, only to be extremely disappointed to be greeted with a sickly sweet candied fruit mixture. 😶
Unsurprisingly a bit of culinary research showed up that 'mince' pies back in the day DID have actual mince in them, usually either beef or mutton, with the addition of some dried fruit and spices. I found an original recipe and now make those every Xmas.
Christmas Eve, you can go out and get drunk with the friends you haven't seen for a while, because none of you are working tomorrow.
Blackout wednesday is same thing in the us.
Unlike the US, the UK does not have the tradition of Homecoming. Although alluded to in a few American movies or TV shows, until you have seen it up close and personal, it’s difficult to believe what a huge event it can be. In large cities it may be somewhat obscured by the scenery, but in many American towns and cities, Homecoming is the event of the year. You cannot get a hotel room for a week before or until the week following. Every business has signs up welcoming people, diners and restaurants are packed, billboards have signs up, it’s a week long party, and generally a big parade on the weekend.
It’s a little bit weird and a little fascinating.
Spare a thought for our wonderful NHS workers and other public service workers who work christmas day.
Yeah but no one gets too wrecked because they don't want Christmas day with a hangover. So generally it's a nice evening because everyone's a bit merry but few get bladdered and embarrass themselves. Well, mostly.
The thing is with Christmas puddings and mince pies is a massive difference between good ones and bad ones. A good age aged soaked repeatedly in alcohol is the best sort of Christmas puddings.
And they are best reheated in the steamer as well
@@tomer4566 But you need the brandy custard sauce (heated) to pour over it (kiwi here. Poms might be different (eat it without the brandy custard), but WE have standards :))
@@kerrynofford4727 And the side serving of pavlova. Let's not be half-arsed about gluttony
Yet they all taste awful
@@streetender1878 More for me 👍
The pantomime is a piece of living history, a play with traditions from medieval times. Everything about it has its roots in commedia del arte and the mystery plays. It is fantastic to know that they are still going.
She rather missed the point. They are generally traditional fairy stories like Grimm or Andersen, and are directed at the children.
However, they are family shows, so there are often double entendres and jokes that the grown-ups get that the children will not.
My Nanna (maternal grandmother) used to make xmas puddings and put old silver six pences (wrapped in greaseproof paper) in to it. Us kids use to obviously hope we'd get one. This was in the 1960s and they were still able to be spent.
Wrapped sixpences? 😮There's posh for you. 😄
I have a stack of old silver sixpences and silver threepence pieces that belonged to my husband's Nana they were used for Christmas pudding and cakes, it's a wonderful no-one choked to death on the threepence ones they're really tiny.
Every Christmas time here in the UK I enjoy having Christmas Pudding it's delicious & I think once you try it every year you'll love it! Happy Holidays Kalyn! 🎅🎄❤💚
I'm 60 ... still hate it ....which means it may take a while Kayyn! hhahahahah
Christmas pudding is one of the best things about Christmas: hot on Christmas Day then cold on Boxing Day and for as many days after as you can keep others from eating it. I do remember Christmas before The Snowman so it may be an age thing.
And the brandy sauce is essential
you can fry a slice of it in butter to warm it up and bring out other flavours (personally I hate it always have) ......
I've never had it cold. How do you melt the brandy butter onto your helping if it's not warm?
A Christmas Carol was the main traditional play before the Snowman.
Christmas Puddings, traditionally had a silver sixpence baked into them. This was when there were still sixpences and they were still made of silver. Whoever got the sixpence in their portion, got to keep it as well as having good luck.
Obviously, a nation that doesn't allow Kinder Surprise Eggs would be shocked by such a choking hazard.
The first official King Charles III coin issued by the Royal Mint was a silver sixpence specifically designed to go in Christmas puddings (though I doubt that many did).
In the 1960's, sixpence coins were the norm, but traditionalists said it should be a silver thruppence. Those were almost extinct and had to be carefully preserved to do their Christmas duty. In that era the tooth fairy brought a sixpence.
@@faithlesshound5621 I had a few of those at one time. We also had a teacher in Infant School who used to give them to any kids with birthdays.
It was a silver three pence…….
I shall be eating goose this Christmas day, which is much more a traditional roast than turkey. The latter gained popularity because it was much cheaper. However, I should add that because goose was expensive, then before the popularity of turkey a chicken was common. In addition, a ham was common in addition to the turkey, goose or chicken.
And goose is much nicer than turkey :) We're having beef this year, but we often have venison. Some years we have goose but never turkey because nobody likes it.
Goose is still very common as a festive bird in Germany. Traditionally you have it with potato dumplings, sweet red cabbage and fried apple rings, and a rich gravy. Oddly enough our family (German) has Beef Wellington most years.
@@diarmuidkuhle8181 we have Christmas spiced red cabbage every year! Half my family is German though. We used to delight in getting a visit from both St Nicholas on the 6th and Father Christmas on the 24th :P
@@TheEulerID Turkey was actually really popular from the 1600s to the release of 'A Christmas Carol', especially (as you say) due to its fattened size and relative cheapness. Dickens ultimately made goose popular again, but once again cheapness brought the Turkey back into fashion in the mid 20th Century. Guessing the demand went up during the War due to American soldiers billeted here for Thanksgiving.
We have Goose most years because it's so tasty and because the fat that comes off it is perfect for roasting the tatties in, but when we have a lot of people for Christmas, an especially large Turkey is usually better. Harder to cook well, though...
About not visiting family on Christmas Day - not every family owns a car and public transport (in London at least) closes down on Christmas Day both to give workers the day off, or to carry out track works, so if you want to visit family it often involves an overnight stay. This can also involve matching pyjamas, and staying in your pyjamas all day.
A lot of relatives also live a long way away too, so even if you were driving it would be impossible to see more than one set of relatives in a day.
My father was born in 1899 and his mother's family came from Liverpool. She apparently prepared what we called plum pudding. When my sister tried to make it my father was able to give her some suggestions that the printed recipe didn't have. I am not a big fan of it, but I have had it a few times in my life.
Charles Dickens invented the British Christmas.
@@robert3987 He certainly popularized it.
@@jeromemckenna7102
Charles Dickens wrote about the plight of the working classes and the poor. William Shakespeare wrote about the establishment, lords and royalty.
My American colleague couldn’t believe we light our Christmas pudding. Warm a spoon of brandy over a flame, light it and pour over the pudding while singing we wish you a merry Christmas 😊
My Dad would go to his golf club to have a drink with his friends whilst my Mum prepared Christmas dinner. When he came back we would go to my Gran's (his mother), get presents from her and bring her back home for dinner/lunch. All my other grandparents were dead by the time I was 3. We would have some other friends and relatives over for dinner, particularly those who would otherwise be alone.
I believe that goose was the traditional Christmas meal until _A Christmas Carol_ in which turkey was used as an extra special celebration because it's bigger. Goose is tastier, though.
And ham for Christmas is not unknown.
I acquired the taste of Christmas pudding as a child and love it, especially with crème fraiche to counteract the sweetness. We don't call it 'the holidays' but Christmastime which covers several days or even weeks!
I would add that Brits say Christmas instead of The Holidays.
True, the holidays could be any time of year. It might be a reference to summer holidays.
Also kind of funny they say "Holidays " (plural) when they only get one day off.
I think they do that to include the Jewish feast of Hannuka(sp?) which falls around the same time. @heneagedundas
@@gerrythompson1721 That, and the holidays includes everything from Thanksgiving through New Years.
I’ve always loved The Snowman. Also love Christmas pudding/mince pies & mulled wine. As I’m in Australia, I only have the mince pies & make Summer pudding as a lighter alternative especially if it’s hot (35 degrees today🥵).
Massive improvement over the last one! Merry Christmas
I alwYs found thst pantomime suits 9:55 all ages as the naughty jokes and political jokes go right over the heads of the chily who absolutely adore the screaming ' He's behind you!'
I think panto is a modern version of one of those very old winter traditions like Feast of Fools or an Abbott of Unreason: it turns decorum topsy-turvy in a controlled way. The audience interaction follows a formal pattern so everyone knows how to behave, the characters are all stock ones, the plot will be 100% familiar. It probably seems chaotic if you’re not used to it, but really it’s the closest you’ll get to a ritual outside a church!
I think it is worth pointing out that every kid goes to panto in the UK and at some age they find out about drag giving us an entirely different idea of what drag is about to our US counterparts.
From UK live in Cincinnati. They played the snowman last year in a large Theater. With the Cincinatti pops live sold out. Audience could all be British but agree not so well known.
Christmas pudding is basically a bread pudding made with grated dried bread, flour, suet, soft brown sugar, and all the left over dried fruit, figs, dates and nuts from last summer and autumn, all soaked in alcohol, usually brandy, but sometimes rum, and spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg. My grandparents would make the pudding in February, and leave it soaking in brandy in a foiled pudding basin sealed in an airtight tin until Christmas, where it would be cooked under pressure for a couple of hours. Stick a sprig of holly in the top, pour brandy over the top, set it on fire, and carry it into the darkened dining room while the whole family sang 'we wish you a merry Christmas... and a happy new year' until the flames burned out.
My grandmother, born in 1890, always made 3 puddings. One was for Christmas day, one for new year's day and the last for Easter. They were made on 'stir up Sunday' about 6 weeks before Christmas.
You missed families that eat the Christmas meal before the Kings speech or after never during.
oh yes the Kings Speech how can she not include that
For those who are from or have spent time in the UK, the following from Kalyn's list will be familiar. "He's behind you!!" and "we're walking in the air."
In the 60s, I worked with a lovely girl from Munich. Her English boyfriend took her to a pantomime, and she was horrified when he shouted at the actors, on the lines of:
"Oh, no, he's not!"
*"Oh, yes, he IS!"*
As she thought they would get thrown out! But she said once she'd got over the shock, she thoroughly enjoyed herself!
The best Christmas puddings are the ones I made 10 years ago, without the nuts and with plenty of fruit and some alcohol to bring out the fruitiness. Sadly I haven't had the time and energy to pull it off well recently. Also the best trifles were from back then. These desserts definitely beat Christmas cake, which is much drier and has the added horror of marzipan (something which I never understood why I didn't like until after many years I discovered it was made of Almonds, which suddenly explained everything!).
I've been making Christmas puddings for over 40 years. If it's dense and heavy, it's badly made. A Christmas pudding should be moist and rich, and the quality of the ingredients matters enormously.
It is very rich and fruity, and probably won't suit the palate of someone who only likes beige food, especially if you don't like things like fruit cake, but Christmas pudding isn't a cake, it's a suet pudding.
Boxing Day is very British because it was the day the rich (landed gentry, nobles etc) gave boxes (of whatever) to their servants, the parish poor and similar. Now, it is visiting time and walking time (all that food from yesterday) and ham, pickles with lots of leftovers.
Certainly its name is very British, but Ireland has it too, just under a different name - as do Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, and several other places. The idea of extending Christmas to two days (two and a half if you count Christmas Eve) is actually quite widespread across Europe.
At one time goose was the traditional bird of choice, with sage & onion stuffing, served with apples in some form, either baked or in the form of apple sauce. There was not as much meat on it as turkey but it is juicier with a lot of subcutaneous fat which was prized for roasting potatoes and even as a chest rub if you had a cold! It has far more flavour than turkey which, unless carefully cooked can be dry. Brining or butter spread under the skin of the breast can help in this regard. My family would serve boiled or baked gammon to accompany the turkey to give it a bit more oomph. It was stuffed with forcemeat, i.e., thyme, lemon & parsley at the rear end and sausage and chestnut stuffing at the neck opening. If it wasn't buttered it was given a covering of pork skin with a good layer of adherent fat, removed towards the end of the cooking time so that the turkey breast could brown.
My mother's Xmas pudding recipe was delicious and much less dense than most. It was mixed with both stout & a slug of whiskey. It was served with brandy better ( not liked by me!) or clotted cream or, my favourite, double cream flavoured with brandy or amaretto. In the WW2 and post war period, when proper cream was not widely available, a brandy sauce accompanied the pudding, a simple white sauce made with milk, butter, sugar and brandy. On Boxing Day, slices of the pudding were sometimes placed in a shallow oven dish and topped with custard enriched with an egg yolk and baked for a short while. The cold turkey or goose was served with bubble and squeak, i.e., a fried mixture of the left over vegetables, mainly sprouts & potato plus pickles chutney or whatever or salad.
As well as the traditional Roses chocolates gleaming dates in their rectangular boxes with rounded end and mixed nuts in their shells appeared. I have vivid memories of playing cards sticking to my date sticky fingers while playing gin rummy.
The smells were wonderful, which were topped of with aroma of my father's special Xmas cigar.
When my parents got older and there were fewer attendees, they liked to have their festive meal on
the evening of Xmas Eve and, more often than not have a brace or two of pheasants with all the old-fashioned trimmings, thyme & parsley stuffing, diced roast potatoes with rosemary & garlic, fried crumbs, spicy red cabbage and watercress.
Are you a member of the aristocracy, by any chance?!
Sounds lovely.
I am so sorry for Americans they don't have Christmas Pudding. It is essential to a great christmas dinner. I make it from the recipe to my own mother used from 1946
Here in Ireland-land, Christmas dinner is turkey AND ham, which I think is a cultural blending for the better!
... as is St Stephen's Day dinner! :D
Having spent Christmas in New York a few years ago at an air b&b, getting what we Brits consider to be Christmas Day dinner was really difficult. We did have to swap a few things out that we just could not get and the cost of the items there was really frightening.
If Christmas pudding is an acquired taste then I acquired it at the first mouthful !
A great favourite, especially given one waits all year for it.
As for turkey, sure it's a popular Xmas choice, but when I was a kid, chicken was more expensive and an Xmas treat. Now other fowl are options too. We're having partridge this year, last year it was duck. So there are lots of possible variations.
Thank you clarifying the whole turkey thing. I always used to wonder how Americans can eat turkey again less than a month later. Your experience with panto sounds so cute and funny. My sister-in-law (not American but grew up different) was equally flabbergasted the first time we took her.
May I be pedantic.
If something is done ON purpose
If something is done ON time
ON shows a deliberate act
If something happens BY coincidence.
If something happens BY accident
BY is like, by the way, a vague, so not deliberate, thing
Saying
It happened ON accident 😮
Americans say that, and it hits me every time.
Pedantic I know, but STOP BLOODY SAYING IT 😂
❤ from Northeast England ❤️
She's already explained why she says it. It's a young person trend in America. Older generations of Americans all say by accident.
... although you can say "by design"!
@rp1692
Aye, but designs must be solidified. They begin none descript
Thank you, drives me nuts as well
Not all Americans say that but it seems to be quite common on the internet. As is: ON Christmas. That should be either 'on Christmas Day' or 'at Christmas'. They also say 'New Years' which should be 'New Year's Day' (pervading these shores lately). Lastly, which is becoming far too common for my liking: 'quite the'. I still say 'quite a' and I correct it mentally every time I hear it.
Also in the subject of panto, it’s common for a Z-list celebrity or someone who used to be famous to have a part. Bonus points if the posters say where you might recognise that person from. For instance, if you went to see Cinderella at the Swindon Wyvern, it’d say “and introducing TV’s Richard Hammond as Buttons”.
What a Top joke! Has the prediction really come true? It May still happen
Very often neighbours stars.
Oh young lady it’s so good to see you exploring the UK Christmas rituals, I know it’s different from the things you grew up with but you have slotted in here beautifully and we are better for having a dual citizen here. Hopefully it just gives you more things to look forward to over this time. Merry Christmas oh and watch out for gentlemen bearing mistletoe….
Everyone eats Christmas pudding wrong - cook it the proper way, have a tiny bit if you have to, for 'tradition', on Xmas day, then on boxing day, cut it into finger thick slices, about the size of the palm of your hand and sear-fry them in brandy butter, or butter and a teaspoon of sugar then serve hot with cream and/or brandy butter - the thick, heavy texture of the pudding changes completely and becomes almost 'fluffy' with a caramelised sugar crunch...
I've not heard that before. We don't have leftover Christmas pudding, but I'm now considering making another one just to try this on boxing day.
That sounds delish! Thank you.
I'm going to have to borrow that one.....
Interesting that in some US states, laws are being proposed that would ban any kind of cross-dressing performances. So British panto would actually be illegal, believe it or not.
I always wonder how super conservative US people would react to pantos whenever I see how extreme they're trying to take things with their fear mongering about trans people and drag queens, it's getting worse here too but I like to think the existence of pantos means we'd never get as far as banning cross dressing
No Shakespeare then?
@nicolad8822 indeed
And some of Shakespeare's plays too ...
The pantomime. One of the reason we call it the 'silly season'. 😉
Regards Christmas Eve, I'm from West Yorkshire (Batley) as you stated we go out with friends to the pub, and at around 23.30hrs most of the pub would empty and we would relocate to the local church for Midnight Mass, after the service we would then retire to peoples homes to continue drinking the night away not getting in till around 5am on Christmas morning.
Christmas Pudding has its roots in the origins of the big meal at Christmas. The midwinter feast was something to look forward to as by the end of December the meats you had salted to preserve it was getting to their sell-by date and other things, such as preserved vegetables, were soon likely to go the same way. So the Christmas Feast made a virtue out of a necessity and had a blow out! One reason that after midwinter belts had to be tightened as food would be in short supply until the earliest harvest items of the spring. (That was also an example of turning a necessity into a virtue with the idea of a Lent fast until Easter). And as to the pudding, suet, dried fruit and sweetness (probably the last of the honey) made a good high calorie meal quite different from the bland food ahead and no doubt helped keep out the cold for a little longer! You would also no doubt kill off poultry as you wouldn't be able to keep feeding them and they go off-lay in the midwinter. The 'traditional' British Christmas pulling all of these features together, was very much the invention of Charles Dickens and, since the Queen was married to a German, it was a time at which many mid-European traditions such as the Christmas Tree (a holly branch formerly served for greenery) and the bloody Christmas card were introduced. Of course the 'turkey' was introduced to Europe in the 16th or early 17th Century and distribution and sales were in the hands of Levantine merchants, know as Turkey Merchants. So the birds became known as Turkey Merchant Birds, shortened to Turkey. Anyone for stuffing?
An excellent 'potted' social history. Many thanks.
@@williamevans9426 Hah, I was about to make the same comment almost verbatim, then clicked to open the replies and found you'd already said the exact thing! So I'll simply say "seconded", kudos though Ian :)
@@Somnogenesis 'Great minds ....', as the saying goes. 😄
@@williamevans9426 Yes, indeed! 🤓
Thanks for your offerings, I enjoy them, Happy Christmas and a Happy, and productive, new year!
Christmas pudding with brandy butter, best thing ever! :)
Could not have Christmas without the Christmas pud. Love, love, love it especially with brandy sauce 😋
You didn't mention going to church. Midnight mass is very popular (midnight on Christmas Eve). We also have all those carols. Mind you the best quote on Christmas that I've heard is 'they should keep religion out of Christmas'.
I love Carols. I'll be going down to the village on Sunday with my little camping lantern for carols on the green with a brass band even though I'm a rotten singer. Afterwards it's into the church hall for mulled wine and mince pies and a raffle. Lovely!
I'm with you about the Christmas pudding - ugh! My family always had to make an apple pie as well as the Christmas pudding just for me! But I do love the whole pouring-brandy-over-the-pudding-and-setting-it-alight before the pudding is served. We always turned the lights out and you have to pour a lot of brandy (or whisky) on it to get a good blue flame.
We done The Snowman as our Christmas play in school when I was in Y1. I played the cat that was freaked out by the snowman.
I got to play the dad... I only had 2 scenes :((
Even better than 'The Snowman' is Raymond Briggs other Christmas classic, 'Father Christmas' (Santa) - where we follow a grumpy old Father Christmas through his usual, yuletide routine and his regular refrain 'Bloomin' Christmas!!!'