h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

... and scarlet whores of all persuasions. Bless 'em, every one.

What kind of a Christmas feast would it be without a handsome pile of pud to finish things off? I wonder how hard it would be to make pocket-size puddings as a precaution against the unlikely event of having Christmas dinner with a Puritan.

JTG

Perish the thought jtg!

I couldn't find all the ingredients in Holland necessary to make my own this year so one of my daughters has kindly sent me one... slightly larger than pocket-size thank goodness!

shazz

... and bless the Dutch and shazz's daughters.

Any country that doesn't readily supply the stuff of Xmas pud ought to have a sign up at the entrance. It's a bit surprising that Holland falls into that category. I always imagined it to be somewhere a person could acquire just about anything at the corner shop... which is my way of measuring the relative merits of a place.

Still, I'm relieved that you won't have to go through Christmas without a pudding to call your own. I would have had to launch a charity drive or something.

JTG

I probably can if I travel further afield to shop. The local venues are certainly short on essentials... suet and candied peel for a start! With Marks and Spencers closing their overseas outlets they wil no longer be selling these items at exhorbitant prices, but I'm sure that Gouda or Leiden would be places to look.

Once I have turned more Dutch and got myself a bike (to go with the clogs, bunches of flowers and plaited hair!) I will investigate farther afield!

Bizzarely mincepies and pud don't appear at all, it's more spiced breads and cakes... nice though not quite the same!

shazz

Pedalling with clogs on sounds dangerous.

Funny, now that I stop to think about it, I don't know how pervasive puds and pies are in the Canadian Christmas celebration either, really. The media seems to latch onto certain things that are associated with the classic idea of an English Xmas. But they are probably only quaint curiosities to many people, who I suspect spend Christmas dusting off the holiday traditions of their own particular ethnic past... like me, I suppose.

Here's to them, anyway... may they have a merry one however they colour Rudolph's nose.

JTG