Christmas Daybook, 3: Christmas Pudding
My Christmas daybook for these 12 days of celebrating. We'll be spending Christmastide with the good, old theologian/British mystery writer/ Christmas elf, G.K. Chesterton. Join us, won't you? (see all Christmas daybook 2016-17 posts here)
Christmas pudding by George underwood (source)
“Christmas and hygiene are commonly in some antagonism, and I, for one, am heartily on the side of Christmas. Glancing down a newspaper column I see the following alarming sentence: ‘The Lancet adds a frightful corollary that the only way to eat Christmas pudding with perfect impunity is to eat it alone.’ At first the meaning of this sentence deceived me. I thought it meant that the eater of Christmas pudding must be in a state of sacred isolation like an anchorite at prayer. I thought it meant that the presence of one’s fellow creatures in some way disturbed the subtle nervous and digestive process through which Christmas pudding was beneficent. It sounded rather mad and wicked, certainly; but not madder or more wicked than many other things that I have read in scientific journals. But on re-reading the passage, I see that my first impression did the Lancet an injustice. The sentence really means that when one eats Christmas pudding one should eat nothing but Christmas pudding. ‘It is,’ says the Lancet, ‘a complete meal in itself.’ This is, I should say, a question of natural capacity, not to say of cubic capacity. I know a kind of person who would find one Christmas pudding a complete meal in itself, and even a little over. For my own part, I should say that three, or perhaps four, Christmas puddings might be said to constitute a complete meal in themselves. But, in any case, this sudden conversion of science to plum-pudding is a fine example of the fickleness of the human intellect and the steadiness of the human appetite. Scientific theories change, but the plum-pudding remains the same, century after century (I do not mean the individual pudding, but the type), a permanent monument of human mysticism and human mirth. If there is one thing most grossly unwholesome and opposed to all medical advice, that thing certainly was Christmas pudding. Now it seems (again by the best medical advice) that to call Christmas pudding wholesome is entirely a faint and approximate expression of its merits. Not only is Christmas pudding wholesome that no other and less medical effect. Who shall decide when doctors disagree - with themselves? The doctors will always disagree and humanity will always decide. ”
We Wish You a Merry Christmas by Spiers and Boden Duo
Today's Readings: Psalm 148, Proverbs 8:22-31, 1 John 5:1-12
Prayer for the Day:
“Lord our God, in the grace of Jesus Christ we pray to you that your will may be done for us and for all the world. Through Jesus Christ grant us faith that you love us, faith that we may live in your love, that we may hope in your love every day and have peace on earth, where there is so much unrest and trouble. Keep us firm and constant, remaining in your peace and in the inner quiet you give us because Jesus Christ has overcome the world. He has truly overcome, and this fills us with joy. We praise you, Almighty God, that you have sent Jesus Christ and that he has overcome the world. We praise you that he has overcome all evil, sin, and death, and that we may rejoice at all times in your presence. Amen.”