Burnt pudding, paper crowns

Mrs. O'Farrell made the plum puddings, and their delivery before Chrismas was one of the early harbingers of the Christmas Day festivities.
You weren't supposed to like plum pudding, it wasn't supposed to look good, but with its dark, almost repulsive blackened mass, like a blood blister, it wobbled on the plate, topped by a prickly sprig of holly with berries from the tree at the corner of our front yard.
Only Dad could get the holly sprig, because the tree was on the edge of the 15-foot rockery that overhung the sidewalk, and Dad in his soggy inebriety could be jeopardized, where we shiny agile monkeys couldn't.
Mom made the whole dinner, no potluck or shared duties, she cooked it all, she put it all on the table, us kids helped, maybe, setting the table, Dad poured the drinks and roasted the almonds.
After dinner, while we sat at the dining room table in anticipation, Mom and Dad warmed the brandy and spooned it over the pudding which had been steaming in its tin can on the stovetop since before dinner started. Then Mom raced around turning out the lights and inviting darkness and wonder to the feast.
Then the door from the kitchen opened, with Dad bearing the blazing pudding into the dining room. We all sang, "We wish you a Merry Christmas." with Dad fanning the brandy flames until he set the pudding down on the table.
We turned the lights back on and picked up our Christmas crackers, crossed arms and pulled each others' snap to open the packages of trinkets, fortunes, and most important of all, colored tissue paper crowns which we universally and immediately set atop our heads.
One year a cousin from Canada was coming. He asked us what we'd like him to bring and we asked him to bring the crackers. He told his young, American Jewish wife that they were to bring crackers as their contriubtion to the Christmas Day dinner.
By crackers, she understood Ritz, saltines, edible biscuits, and not the British party favors that alway accompanied the consumption of plum pudding and the end of our Christmas feast. Luckily, our cousin was able to detect her assumption in time to take corrective measures and deliver the party crackers.
In those days, everyone at the table had a little pudding and a lot of hard sauce -- butter and powdered sugar with one vivid maraschino cherry in the middle. The bitter, dense darkness of the pudding was blanketed by the heavy sweetness of the hard sauce as we read our fortunes and shared our trinkets.
Nowadays, a few of us still sample the pudding. For years, my sister made the puddings, and sometimes she still does. But the younger generation's attitude towards our plum pudding was best expressed when my niece purchased a canned commercial plum pudding at a British food import store.
"Ooooh, do you like plum pudding?" asked the clerk. "This is very small.... are there may folks coming to your dinner, maybe you need more?"
"No, thank you," replied my niece, "We just set it on fire."