We used to have a certain dinner when we stayed with my grandparents for Christmas (as the family did every year from 1952 when my mother was married, to 1974 when my brother died and my grandfather left the farm.

It was always a really thick stew with lots and lots of boiled potatoes that my granfer, rather than granny, cooked. When we stopped going there, the tradition remained, but the stews were never quite the same (my dad's cooking was of the shovel it in a frying pan and burn it to buggery variety). There was always a big apple crumble to follow and the treat of Christmas Eve was to go up into the loft of the farmhouse, a proper attic where you didn't bang your head and was probably the servants quarters years before (I remember the staircase was a proper one, rather than a ladder or open steps). It had in it a store of apples that granfer would lay down from the orchard over the stream in the garden, and we'd make the crumble from those. They weren't Bramleys, and they weren't sweet eaters but they were something in between, a juicy, sweet but sharp apple that was the size of a Bramley. Never seen or tasted them since.


We would also have one present to open. It was always from the pets and always the same present, modelling clay (plasticine for those who know these things), to keep us quiet and out of the way for the evening. It's a tradition I've kept up with Bratling, and it seems to work!

Merry Christmas Eve Eve.

LTS