I came across a hilarious article about Christmas by Allison Pearson in the paper the other day…. here are just a couple of paragraphs that had me laughing out loud!
Each family has its own Christmas traditions. For instance, every year Himself insists on making bread sauce from scratch. He steeps, he stirs, he crumbs, he cloves. After hours of infinite pains, the bread sauce always looks like wallpaper paste. For all I know, it tastes like wallpaper paste, but we will never find out. You see, the time-honoured fate of Himself’s bread sauce is that it gets forgotten or lost under a pile of cracker debris or an oven glove discarded at the height of the parsnip frenzy. Not Eating the Bread Sauce is a key component of our Christmas, a tradition more honoured in the breach than in the observance, but much loved none the less.
Why doesn’t Himself stop making the bread sauce if no one eats it, a rational Dawkins type might ask. Why do we keep stuffing stockings full of silly gifts when the children are taller than us? Why does a grandmother I know fake Santa footprints in icing sugar and make reindeer poo out of coconut and chocolate? Why did one colleague Skype from Kenya two years ago to join in her family’s hotly contested game of Articulate, complete with engraved cup for the winner? Because it’s traditional, isn’t it? Traditions are both honourable and illogical.
… and here is what she says about Brussels sprouts:
According to a poll for BBC Good Food Magazine, almost four in 10 Britons admitted that they only ate turkey because it was traditional, while 14 per cent said they would not dare change it “for fear of upsetting family members”. This Christmas, 62 per cent of us will enjoy a traditional turkey dinner, although Christmas pudding is endangered, with only 54 per cent saying they like the rich 14th-century dessert.
Like? What on earth has liking anything got to do with Christmas? It’s traditional, you wimpy wets! Thank goodness Brussels sprouts are just about holding their own, with 64 per cent saying the evil green bullets will feature on their festive table. This season, Waitrose made a well-meaning but entirely wrong-headed decision to sell a sweeter, “child-friendly” variety.
Brussels sprouts should not be friendly to either child or adult. That is their traditional function. Like Islamic fundamentalists, sprouts are a common enemy around which the British people can rally. As for the decision by millions of us to keep setting fire to a claggy, artery-clogging, indigestion-inducing steamed fruit pudding… well, the heart has its raisins.
To read what else Allison has to say here is the rest of the article:
Lois Elsden 
Hey! I’m all for free speech, but leave the sprouts alone. Slice em up, heat in pan with garlic and pepper and some olive oil. Then add lardons and eat. Can’t wait!
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I love sprouts… they are just yummy, but I’m the only one in my family who does!
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I love sprouts as they remind me of my Auntie Flo making them back in Old Trafford for my brother and I. My wife got tired of them and told me that we would get what she likes, which was parsnips. I hated them at first but now love them. A.friends daughter told me that you cant say that you dont like something until youve tried it at least twelve times. I think that goes for everything but liver, Yuck!!!
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I can’t abide liver which has been cooked in a casserole, but fried so it has a crispy outside… yes I like that! I don’t like rabbit (soapy) and much as I’ve tried to like pumpkin in pies and whatever it’s just sweet and yuk… that’s why I always try to get home by midnight, with or without my glass slipper…. what could I do with a carriage-sized pumpkin?
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