Flaming Pudding....Really?

I think everyone has Christmas traditions that they remember from when they were children, or that they have started with their own children. I have lots of memories of things we used to do with my family for Christmas – making date nut bars for Santa (found out later it was a favorite of Santa’s, re: my dad), having cheese ball, crackers and eggnog on Christmas Eve while my dad read the Night Before Christmas, eating powdered donuts and hot chocolate while opening stocking gifts on Christmas morning, opening presents and then driving to my grandma and grandpa’s house. I was usually squished in the middle of the backseat with my brothers on each side of me while we (kind of) sang the song –“over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go!” We did these things year after year, and they became comforting traditions.
My husband and I have started trying to make new traditions for our children. Putting out cookies and reindeer food on Christmas Eve is the one that Bean gets very excited about every year. The reindeer eat oatmeal, as this was the only thing I could find the first year to throw outside in the grass and now she remembers that. And of course, Daddy reading The Night Before Christmas. I am certain that as the girls get older, we will start new traditions as well. And maybe we will even pick up some new ones in England. Some of them that I have read about seem a little odd, but when in Rome (or England)……here are a few of them that I have read about.
---The pulling of the Christmas cracker: a cracker is a brightly colored paper tube, twisted at both ends, which contains a party hat, riddle and toy or other trinket. When it is pulled by two people it gives out a crack as its contents are dispersed.
---Listening to the Queen’s annual Christmas message on Christmas day.
---In the UK, Santa Clause is actually referred to as Father Christmas. He also dresses a little differently than what we see here, wearing a long green and red robe. And apparently Father Christmas is a little bit of a lush, as it is traditional to leave him sherry or a beer, not milk, along with a mince pie.
---Eating the Christmas flaming pudding, which by the way is apparently made weeks ahead of time, and is stirred by each family member as they make a wish. I already know what my wish will be –that I don’t have to actually eat flaming pudding.
---Celebrating Boxing Day, the day after Christmas. Still don’t really have a handle on this one, are we really expected to leave a box or a tip for someone, or is this one of the things where the name of the day continues but the actual activity stopped?
I am looking forward to learning how they celebrate holidays, the things that they may do differently, and maybe even incorporating some of these things into our own traditions after we are back in America (minus the pudding). That will allow the children to remember their time over there and appreciate it, and maybe even incorporate some of these things into their own traditions when they have their own families. Next year at this time, I can imagine a similar post to this, with the real low down on English Christmas traditions.