By Jenny Brown | Parent Hope Blog 

In this mini blog, Jenny Brown reminds us that preparing for Christmas family gatherings also means honouring where we come from—the people, traditions, and memories that shape us.

I’ve spent much of my past Saturday preparing Christmas puddings. Ironically, I was steaming them as Sydney sweltered through record heat. As I measured and mixed, I found myself drifting back to past Christmases and to the fact that this is now the forty-sixth Christmas without my mother.

She loved Christmas and everything it represented. Even though she left us before we found our footing as adults, she instilled in my siblings and me a deep love for tradition. We still reminisce about the nights she gathered neighbourhood children and families into our yard to act out the nativity, singing carols with candles flickering in our hands. And always, after the feast of cold seafood, salads, roasted turkey, and ham, came the lighting of the pudding.

I can’t remember exactly when, after her death, I took on the responsibility of making the puddings—soaking dried fruit in brandy, leaving it for a week, and then combining all the magical ingredients. But I do remember my first attempt over forty years ago: the old-fashioned method, wrapping the pudding in muslin and hanging it from a broomstick. After twenty-four hours, the string gave way, and the pudding splattered across my kitchen floor. From that year on, I turned to pudding basins and a pressure cooker.

It’s funny how traditions evolve, and we adapt. We never had a pressure cooker when I was growing up, but I was given one as a wedding present, and it’s proved a loyal partner in delivering puddings for a new generation.

Now, as I type these reflections, the familiar aroma of spice, citrus, and brandy-soaked fruit fills the house. I smile at the classic pudding tales: the great-aunt who soaked coins in antiseptic before tucking them into the pudding—apparently preserving both hygiene and tradition (almost inedible)—or the childish thrill of finding shillings in my Granny’s excellent pudding. Not everyone shares a love of dried fruit, but the excitement of lighting the pudding never seems to fade. Two more generations now know that Aunty Jenny will conjure the annual blue-and-orange flame—yes, even after the year I singed my fringe, a mistake I’ve been careful not to repeat.

As I think ahead to another season of family gatherings, I’m mindful of how I want to show up—of not over-functioning or exhausting myself in the pursuit of “just right.” Today I’m equally committed to looking back: honouring the heritage of those who came before us and sharing the stories that make up our family folklore.

I’m thinking fondly of my mother—of how she taught me to love Christmas and to remember its meaning. For her, it was more than tradition; it was the deep, sustaining Christian faith and hope that carried her through a premature death from cancer. I’m grateful to have inherited the role of pudding maker, because it offers a small moment of connection to generations past. Whether the tradition continues beyond me is not something I would ever impose on my daughters. What matters is the sharing of these stories, and the quiet honouring of those who have been missing from our tables for so long.