 Week Two An unusual Christmas day... About 150 years ago there lived a very famous naturalist called Philip Henry Gosse who belonged to a church that didn't celebrate Christmas. He had a young son, Edmund, whom he had to bring up alone because his wife had died. Although Philip was an extremely kind and loving father, he was unbendingly strict about religion and had some unusual ideas. At Christmas 1857, for example, he made sure that Christmas Day followed exactly the same routine as any other day. There were to be no special celebrations! But the household servants (in those days even quite modest families had servants) thought otherwise. They secretly made a plum pudding - and gave some to young Edmund. Unfortunately, this betrayal of his father made Edmund feel extremely guilty: 'Shortly I began to feel the pain inside which in my frail state was inevitable, and my conscience smote me violently. At length I could bear my spiritual anguish no longer, and bursting into the study I called out "O Papa, papa, I have eaten the flesh offered to idols!" It took some time, between my sobs, to explain what had happened. Then my father sternly said "Where is that accursed thing?" I explained that as much as was left of it was still in the kitchen. He took me by the hand; and ran with me into the midst of the startled servants, seized what remained of the pudding; and with the plate in one hand and me still tight in the other, ran till we reached the dust heap, when he flung the idolatrous confectionary on to the middle of the ashes; and then raked it deep down into the mass.' Return to Christmas Puddings >>
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