The holiday season is well over a month away, but volunteers gathered at a Kitchener church to kick-start a festive tradition. It was all hands-on deck Monday morning at St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church to create their famous Christmas pudding. “It’s an old-fashioned recipe that has been handed down,” Henriette Thompson, a four-year volunteer, explained. “This church has been making Christmas pudding for well over 70 years, so they really know how to do it.” The annual pudding tradition dates back to 1949, but the recipe has remained the same, and those involved say that’s what keeps people coming back for more. “They are particularly full of fruit. So they’re very heavy, very dense, very rich and full of dried fruit,” said Charles Stuart, the convener of this year’s operation. Starting with a goal of making 800 pounds of pudding, that number was since increased to accommodate demand. “We made the 800 target and then the 900 target because there were more requests, more orders, more sales. So we settled on 1,000 to be safe,” Stuart said. He added that he’s been receiving calls since August from people looking to place orders. “They may have missed last year or the year before, and they’re anxious about not getting a pudding,” Stuart said. The one-pound puddings sell for $15, with a portion of the proceeds going back to the church. The rest of the money will be doled out to charitable organizations helping those in the community, such as St. John’s Kitchen. To give more people a chance at getting their hands on some of the highly sought-after dessert, the pudding will also be sold at the Makers Market in Baden on Nov. 21.
