Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Tasting "A Christmas Carol" - Christmas Pudding




We watched Disney's The Muppet Christmas Carol for our family movie night, to go along with our reading of the Dickens classic.  I was pleasantly surprised at the number of direct quotes from the story it contains.  It turned out to be a lot more on the educational side, than I had anticipated.  Though, of course, with the Muppets there was plenty of "entertainment", too.

The children had a good time picking out the parts of the movie that were the same, and the parts that deviated from the book.

The Christmas pudding was omitted from the Kermit/Cratchit's Christmas dinner.  But, that was okay, because I was ready with Mathew Walker Christmas pudding (ordered earlier in the week off of Amazon) to fill the gap.

I had deliberately ordered the small, four serving pudding, so that I would be able to deliver the line that, "nobody said or thought that it was at all a small pudding for a large family", and because as I suspected...


...the English dessert is an acquired taste - especially for our American palates...sort of like a really moist fruit cake.

I don't think Christmas pudding will make our list Christmas favorites. It was fun though to take a taste, and bring a spoonful of the story to life.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

7 comments:

Dawn said...

That is so cool. I would love to try that someday.
Blessings, Dawn

Anonymous said...

This, of course, is nothing like the "original" Christmas pudding. I think the modern version has about 70% sultanas, which wouldn't have been so readily available in Edwardian England. I'm not surprised you didn't like it :-)

Phyllis said...

We make a Christmas pudding every year...I bet it is better homemade. I never have had it any other way, however. Really good with a hard sauce.

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

I thought you made it yourself :) I remember hearing somewhere that The Muppet Christmas Carol is the closest to original Dickens' story that any other screen adaptation. I still think that Anna would not like ghost parts.

Cristy said...

I love the way you bring so many different elements into the one book you are working on. The muppets and the pudding. The kids will never forget that story.

An Almost Unschooling Mom said...

Nicol - I did notice sultanas were the top ingredient...if I get time I might check into an old recipe...if I see "beef suet" on the ingredient list though - well, let's just say I'll stick with fruit cake :)

Phylis - Do you boil yours?

Natalie - The ghost scenes weren't bad. They had a lot of Muppety humor to lighten them up. However, you might want to Google and watch a few episodes of the old Muppet Show, or it probably won't all make sense.

jmommymom said...

After we made our own Christmas pudding two years ago I don't think we will ever stop the tradition. The kids loved it and are looking forward to eating it. Sorry yours wasn't a favorite. http://highhillhomeschool.blogspot.com/2012/03/english-christmas-pudding.html