An important part of the Christmas Day celebrations in the UK is the Christmas pudding.

Christmas pudding is a round, rich and heavy pudding made from fruit, eggs, sugar, breadcrumbs, suet, spices, and alcohol such as brandy or rum. Many families have their favourite pudding recipe, which is often passed down through generations of family members.

Stir-up Sunday is traditionally the day for making your Christmas pudding; giving it a month to mature before eating it on Christmas day. Stir-up Sunday is on the 20th November this year.

According to tradition, everyone in the family (especially the children) takes a turn to stir the pudding and makes a wish while stirring. Traditionally, the pudding should be stirred from east to west in honour of the three Kings who travelled from the East to see Jesus; and it should also have 13 ingredients to represent Christ and his disciples.

It used to be common for people to put a coin in their Christmas pudding. This was supposed to bring wealth in the coming year to the person who found it.

Christmas puddings are popular here in the UK, but many people now buy their puddings from their local supermarket.

The Great Christmas Pudding Race

The 31st Great Christmas Pudding Race takes place on 3rd December in Covent Garden Market, London. The event raises money for Cancer Research UK.

Teams of people – usually in fancy dress – run a race around an obstacle course, whilst carrying a Christmas pudding on a tray. 

If you celebrate Christmas, what special traditions do you have?

Do you eat Christmas pudding?

St Patrick's Day is on March 17th and it is the national day of Ireland.

It is a secular celebration, and an important religious festival.

It is holy day of obligations for Roman Catholics in Ireland, as well as a religious celebration for the Anglican Church of Ireland.

St Patrick's Day has been an official public holiday since 1903.

St Patrick

St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland. He lived from approximately 387 – 460AD.

It is said he was born in Wales to a wealthy family, but he was kidnapped by Irish raiders as a teenager and held as a slave in Ireland for six years. He worked as a shepherd for those six years and during that time his faith as a Christian became very important to him.

St Patrick escaped his life of slavery by stowing away on a boat to Britain. He dreamt that he should return to Ireland as a missionary and preach Christianity so he studied to be a priest. 

According to legend, St Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland.

He is buried at Down Cathedral, County Down, Ireland and many people across the world make the pilgrimage to his grave.

St Patrick's Day celebrations

Irish people all over the world celebrate St Patrick's Day with parades and special events.

Many people wear green and in some cities the rivers and streams are dyed green. Some pubs even serve green beer!

The "wearing of the green" means wearing a shamrock. The shamrock is the national flower of Ireland and St Patrick used it to explain the Holy Trinity to the pagans in Ireland.

St Patrick's Festival

The first St Patrick's Festival was held on the 17th March 1996. Every year, Irish culture is showcased with parades, music, film, poetry, fireworks, treasure hunts and other special events.

Irish Language

Irish and English are both official languages in Ireland.

Irish is an official language of the European Union.

The Irish Republic is officially bilingual, and English and Irish appear widely on signs, public buildings, and official forms and documents

Some English words of Irish origin from St David's School, Dublin

galore – plenty, a lot. From go leor, Irish for plenty.

phoney – (from fáinne, ring) meaning 'fake'. The term originated from Irish immigrants in the US and referred to fake gold rings illegally marketed there.

shenanigans – deception or trickery

Tory -  (from tóraí) outlaw, robber

Examples of common Irish Slang from the BBC

acting the maggot - in a mischeivous mood, trying to get others to laugh at you

crack – fun

the life of Reilly – having a very good time, often while others are not

fellas – men

wans – women

mot or ol'doll – girlfriend

a fine half – a good looking person of the opposite sex

deadly – really good

very tired - banjaxed

Images © locusolus and vawa_92 on Flickr

Anita Hunt of Nita Joy Craft Design has very kindly written me a guest post about the plants and flowers associated with some of the counties and countries of the UK.

___________________________________________

Flowers and plants are used in so many ways throughout our lives.

They mark a variety of occasions such as the celebration of births and weddings, and the remembrance of someone’s life. And many of us love adding plants to our gardens, and protecting our wildflowers.

Many flowers have a meaning, and the language of flowers is also known as floriography. The significance of flowers doesn’t stop there, as they are also associated with country and county emblems.

England

The Tudor Rose has always represented England.

The Tudor Rose signifies the coming together of the red rose emblem for Lancashire and the white rose of Yorkshire after the War of the Roses ended in 1495, and Henry VII from Lancashire married Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV of Yorkshire.

Scotland

Scotland’s flower emblem is the thistle, which is common throughout the country.

There are many stories about why the thistle was chosen for their emblem, one being that it dates from the 1263 Battle of Largs. The story says that when the Norwegians took off their shoes so as not to wake their Scottish enemies, they did not realise that beneath their feet was the painfully sharp thistle. Their cries of pain woke the Scottish army who won the ensuing battle.

Ireland

Northern Ireland (part of the UK) and the Republic of Ireland are represented by the shamrock, which is a three leaved plant similar to the clover.

The shamrock is also known as Wood Sorrel.

This plant’s story is that St Patrick used it to explain the Trinity from the Christian religion – the three leaves represent the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

St Patrick’s Day is celebrated on the 17th March each year and it is common to wear a shamrock in honour of this day.

In the USA, in towns and cities with a large Irish population, St Patrick’s Day is widely celebrated and many places have parades.

The phrase ‘In clover’, which has been previously mentioned by Angela in her series on English idioms, is also associated with the shamrock’s meaning.

The shamrock is associated with many mystical stories and often linked with the Irish Leprechaun.

Wales

Wales’ emblems are the leek and the daffodil.

These represent St David’s Day which is celebrated on the 1st March each year, in honour of the Welsh patron saint St David.

The leek was seen as a vegetable that would promote health and happiness, and so became an important symbol for Wales.

The importance of the daffodil is relatively recent compared to the leek: it was introduced as an emblem after being a part of ceremonies in the 1900’s.

County flower emblems

Some counties in the UK are historically linked with their chosen flower; for example the red rose, whose historical significance to the county of Lancashire dates back to the middle ages.

This particular flower emblem was also chosen quite recently, in 2002, to unofficially represent the United Kingdom.

To gain an insight into various flowers representing particular counties and countries the international wild plant conservation charity Plantlife ran a competition for members of the public to nominate a wildflower for their county flower emblem.

The Plantlife competition is a fascinating read. The results of the competition highlight areas of special interest, with flowers and plants particularly associated with a given area. Dorset and Cornwall, for example, are famous for their heath so this was chosen as their counties' wildflower emblems.

To see a further list of the chosen wildflowers for various counties in the UK, please visit Plantlife’s website.

What flower or plant emblems do you have for your county or country?

Guest post by Anita Hunt from Nita Joy Design – specialising in personalised cards and floral gifts

You can follow Anita on Twitter @NitaJoyDesigns   Read Anita’s blog: Handmade greeting cards

Images © Anita Hunt

The phrase nineteen to the dozen refers to something that is happening very fast, or that is moving very quickly.

If someone is talking nineteen to the dozen they are talking very quickly.

Colloquial British English expression.

Examples of use:

1. She was so excited about passing her exam, she was talking nineteen to the dozen!

2. The car accident gave me such a shock. My heart was going nineteen to the dozen.

It's thought that this phrase has its origins in eighteenth century Cornish tin mining. (Cornwall is a county in the South West of England, in the UK)

Cornish beam engines were introduced to reduce flooding in the mines, and they pumped out 19,000 gallons of water for every 12 bushels of coal needed to operate the engines – a much faster and more efficient way of pumping water than the hand pumps they replaced.

If you would like to learn more about Cornish tin mining, the BBC Nation on Film site has some clips of archive film about Cornish tin mines, including interviews with Cornish tin miners.

Image © Angela Boothroyd