One of my earliest memories of Christmas that I as a little girl, and throughout my growing years had, was centered around the pudding my mother made every year. I think its place in our family's Christmas traditions was right up there with the farm grown tree and the presents. The making and putting up of the home made decorations and the tree with its real candles was of no more importance in our family holiday plans than the huge steamed pudding my mother fretted through every Christmas forenoon.

My mother's English family had a fixed schedule of holidays every year. Thanksgiving at Aunt Hattie and Uncle Will Van Wie, Christmas at my home, and New Year's oyster stew at Uncle John and Aunt Jussie Edwards. My Uncle Herb Edwards lived there too. Because we were a farm family our gift exchange took place on Christmas Eve after a bit of early chores time. This also gave Mother the time needed to prepare this special pudding and the hours long boiling of it; three hours of it.

She would call over on the hand rung telephone to the butcher at Grand Marsh for the special type of suet, and he would send it to her through the mail. He knew what she wanted for she did this every year. This suet was carefully chopped with a wicked looking knife on a wooden handle in her big wooden chopping bowl the night before and kept in a cold place. On Christmas morning this chopped suet was mixed with molasses, sour milk, huge seeded raisins (these don't seem to be on the market anymore), flour, soda and salt.

It never occurred to me this was an unusual Christmas morning activity. I presumed that this holiday tradition went on in every home and that every mother worried about the tying of the pudding string. Now I know they didn't. I suppose I was one of the few who understood the mother's worry in the story "A Christmas Carol," and the importance my mother gave this delicious dessert and her ability to prepare this delicacy perfectly.

Now the anxiety in the preparation of the pudding was the tying. This beautiful pudding, that almost danced on the plate, could so easily be a disaster. If the tying was too tight the dough wouldn't rise properly and the end result would be a heavy product. Too loose - total calamity - inedible. For this pudding dough would be boiled three hours, not in a pan, but directly in the water.

After the stiff dough was thoroughly mixed Mother would wet a flour sack and then sift flour heavily all over it. Then this dough was placed in the center of the sack and the sides drawn up to the top. The decisions, decisions as she contemplated how much expansion of the dough it would take for that delicious fluffy dessert to emerge. I can still see her running her hand up and down the gathered folds of the bag, and then - THE TYING! Then she would lower the bag and its contents into the boiling water in the big kettle onto a heavy earthen plate. The cover was put in place and the boiling continued for three hours on our wood burning range, and this boiling mustn't stop for a minute, because the water could enter the pudding with complete ruin.

By then my mother's English brothers and sisters and their families would have arrived for a huge holiday dinner - but all saving tummy room for plum pudding. It was so light it almost quivered on the plate as it was brought ceremoneously to the table. It was eaten very hot with cream and sugar over the generous slices.

It's kind of hard to imagine all that time and effort in this day of mixes and short cut cooking, But, oh the Joy of that tradition that so much depended on the tying of the pudding string!!

The gift - and love - of the Christmas tradition brought to us by my mother has always stayed with me.