My father also used to toast 'absent friends' at Christmas.

My Nanna - mother's mother, always used to prepare an extra plate, cutlery, and set a spare chair in the corner of the dining room. We used to visit her each Boxing Day and it would still be there - I don't know how long it stayed there, but she used to keep the twelve days of Christmas.

She was always a bit evasive as to why it was there - she would say it was in case anyone turned up unexpectedly - but everyone in the family turned up because they were expected.

From my father's side - his mother was a great maker and baker - she made an oblong Christmas cake - it was always sliced into a thick piece which was then cut into four - and I do just the same. She also made a Twelfth cake which was a different recipe and cooked in a fluted circular tin with a hole in the middle - a major feature of this cake was the different colour glace cherries, red, green, orange and yellow, cooked whole. There was more fruit than cake - and nuts, walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds, very lightly chopped so as to fill in the spaces between the fruit.

A Yorkshire custom - I think - is to eat white Cheshire Cheese with Christmas cake.

Anne the Pleater :ootd: