The Runaway Christmas Pudding
(Or why you should never put too much brandy in the pudding!)
One Christmas, too many aunts were helping to make dinner in the kitchen.
The Christmas pudding was sitting in a cotton bag, full of fruit, dates, nuts, sugar and other such goodness. It was not the pudding’s fault that the aunts interfered. It turned all its goodness to badness and it managed to escape.
It happened like this.
Aunt Slicer, who was tall thin and beaky was enjoying her Christmas sherry. She said, “This sherry is very good Arnold and although I usually stop at two glasses, I think I’ll have another.”
So she did.
Then she said, “The Christmas pudding doesn’t look quite right. I think I’ll give it an extra dose of this very good sherry.”
So she poured the sherry into the cotton bag and the Christmas pudding gobbled it all up like this “shlurp, shlurp, shlurp”.
Then Aunt Plop who was large, round and snubby was enjoying her Christmas port. She said, “This port is very good Arnold. I must say I usually only have one, or two, but tonight I’ll have three.”
Then she poked the Christmas pudding and said, “This doesn’t feel quite right. I think I’ll give it an extra dose of port.”
So she poured the port into the cotton bag and the Christmas pudding gobbled it all up like this – “burp, burp, burp”.
Then Aunt Jehosaphat who was small, nippy and interfering was enjoying her Christmas liqueur.
(At one time this almond liqueur was made by very serious monks who lived at the top of a mountain. They could not believe they had made something so delicious and when they drank it they all fell off the mountain and went rolling down into the valley. The recipe survived and it was fatal to the Christmas pudding.)
Aunt Jehosaphat said, “I don’t usually even have one glass of liqueur but this Almond Liqueur is so divine I will have four or five glasses.”
Then she squished the Christmas pudding and said, “This pudding looks like it needs some Almond Liqueur.”
So she poured the liqueur into the cotton bag and the Christmas pudding gobbled it all up like this – “BAAARP!”
“Don’t worry,” Arnold said, “The pudding will settle down when we cook it in the pot.”
So they put the cotton bag full of goodness and badness into a big pot of boiling water and left it to cook while they played games like “Search for the Spectacles”, “Find the False Teeth” and “Where is my Neighbour?”
(This last game was played by the children who threw water balloons over the wall to see if they could hit anyone. It was really extremely naughty of them and if Father Christmas had not already sent out delivery teams of reindeer, they would have been put on the very bad list.)
Luckily for the children, no neighbours or other foreigners were harmed during the making of the Christmas dinner and when they were so hungry they could have eaten vegetables, they were called in to the feast.
All the aunts, uncles, grannies and assorted furniture were heaped at one end of the table. Arnold, Mrs Arnold and their four children were at the head of the table.
Mrs Arnold carved the turkey to great applause. Then came the moment everyone was waiting for! It was time to light up the pudding! All the children fought for the honour of setting the pudding alight. It was a great tradition that was usually left to the oldest person in the house. But the children were so naughty they kept blowing out grandpa’s matches.
Mrs Arnold brought the massive Christmas pudding out of the kitchen and unwrapped its cotton bag. It looked large, brown and angry.
“Hooray!” said all the aunts, uncles, grannies and furniture.
“Hooray!” said the foreigners who had sneaked in from next door.
“I shall now dose the pudding with brandy,” Mrs Arnold announced grandly.
She did this and the pudding went “ROAAAAR!”
Everyone looked at everyone else and grandpa asked loudly, “Did someone fart?”
The children screamed with laughter.
Then Mrs Arnold said, “Who will light up this pudding?”
“We will! We will!” the children screeched and they all lit matches.
(They had eaten all their Christmas chocolates and broken all their presents. There was nothing left for them to do!)
The Christmas pudding was a blazing inferno.
All the aunts, uncles, grannies, furniture and foreigners clapped nervously.
But just as grandpa had got up the courage to pick up his knife to slice the pudding, it stood up on little clove legs and shook a clove fist and ran away.
“Stop the pudding!” yelled grandpa.
Everyone had knives out and started stabbing. But the fiery Christmas pudding kept rolling down the table. Once it got a head start it was able to leap off the table and roll for the door.
“Stop that pudding!” yelled Mrs Arnold “It’s got a fortune in dates and nuts in it!”
The family pursued the pudding hotly down the road.
Then the dog next door tried to take a bite of the pudding and got his tongue burned.
“Yaroo!” said the dog next door.
“Stop that pudding!” said a policeman, “It’s lethal!”
So all the aunts, uncles, grannies, furniture, foreigners, cats, dogs, policemen and Mrs Arnold chased the flaming Christmas pudding into the city centre.
This Christmas pudding was not like an ordinary gingerbread man that was going to be fooled into sitting on someone’s nose and getting eaten. It had too many expensive ingredients for that! This Christmas pudding had ambition! It wanted to go to the stores and buy stuff. It wanted to have a home of its own and marry another Christmas pudding and have lots of little mince pies.
And just as it was planning all of these ambitious plans, the Christmas pudding was run over by a garbage truck.
Yes, as intelligent as that pudding was, it had no idea about traffic rules. It did not know that a red light meant stop and it carried on rolling.
There was a big SQUISH! in the middle of the city street.
And all the aunts, uncles, grannies, furniture, foreigners, cats, dogs, policemen and Mrs Arnold all said, “Aaaaaah!”
The policeman said, “I could do with a cup of tea right about now.”
Mrs Arnold said things that couldn’t be written down in any book.
And the children said, “We hate that nasty brandy taste anyway. How about some ice-cream?’
They all went home and the children had ice-cream cones – which were just what they wanted and the adults all fell asleep – which was just what they wanted.
But before she did, Mrs Arnold wrote a large note to the aunts that said, “DO NOT DOSE THE CHRISTMAS PUDDING!”
And mailed it to them the next year.
By Ingela Richardson
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