Being Irish born and bred, my wife and I have always tried to instill our heritage into our children . Through career placements, they spent a lot of their growing up years in various parts of Australia ( mostly in the outback). As a school principal, it was not uncommon to be moved from a smaller school to a larger school every 18 to 24 months as you gained more and more experience and learned the myriad essentials of the education rules and regulations.
(In Australia, education is managed by each State’s central government. Therefore one year you could be teaching in one end of the State; the next year you could “transferred” to the completely opposite end of the State)

In an attempt to provide the kids with much-needed stability with each of these moves, my wife would regularly remember all of the "Irish" holidays and "do" something special for each one. No holiday was more feverishly observed than Christmas, and no tradition was more faithfully kept than the making of the annual Christmas cake and the essential plum pudding.

Outside of Ireland, most people have no concept of what an Irish Christmas cake is really like. At different times and in different places, I have had offered to me, delicacies bearing that name which had no resemblance to the original and some of which were a travesty to even think they could bear the title!

A truly Irish “Christmas” cake contains no "sponge" cake, no "coffee cake", or any other such weak-kneed concoctions and, certainly its icing is neither soft, runny or multi-flavored or colored.

The truly "Irish" Christmas cake is a very solid and heavy mixture of sweet fruits and spices ( some people include nuts in the recipe ---but I never experienced such, growing up). The secret ingredient is either a bottle of stout ( substitute Guinness), or a "good" serving of some local Irish whiskey which makes the cake the exceptional product it turns out to be at the hands of a master, Irish Christmas cake chef. Each cake of course is accompanied with legendary family tales. Ours involves one cake my wife made during the fall of 1982.

The Christmas cake is always made several months prior to December 25th, in order to allow the ingredients to "mature". It is never iced (which by the way is usually done with marzipan icing) until the last moment. The cake is allowed to cool and is then wrapped in greaseproof paper and subsequently wrapped in layers of newspaper or “muslin cloth“. It is then placed somewhere safe -------- in our house
(and don't laugh) that place was under our bed.

On this particular occasion, everything was going perfectly according to plan. The mixture had been stirred by each member of the family, individually making a special Christmas wish ( and this would be in late September or early October). It was then cooked in a wood burning stove, cooled for several hours, then "mummified" as per years of family tradition and “hidden” for maturing purposes.

The whole preparation was moving along successfully, when one night our small poodle appeared at the door of the hallway leading from the bedrooms into the family room. If any of you remember the movie "Cat Ballou" and the scene where Lee Marvin is sitting astride his horse and both of them are leaning against the side of a building, much the worse for wear due to alcohol consumption ------ that is exactly how this little dog was standing at the doorway entrance.

It was my wife who noticed the pieces of newspaper protruding from the corners of his mouth! A hurried examination revealed almost a quarter of that huge cake had been digested by that horrible little monster and he was now suffering the consequences of his ill gotten gains. He lay on his bed for three days, literally howling from the pain of what I can only imagine was a hangover headache.

My wife was all for throwing out the remains of the fare ------- ( over my dead body!). I insisted she cut off the part where that mischievous creature had sunk his teeth and we kept the rest as planned for icing and Christmas Day enjoyment.

By the way ---it was scrumptuous !!!

The dog mysteriously never went near newspaper ever again.