STIR Up Sunday, tomorrow, is the traditional day when families dig out their wooden spoons and mixing bowls to make a Christmas pudding.

The day falls on the last Sunday before advent. Families would leave church to go home and teach the children how to stir up the ingredients for the pudding and each family member would make a wish.

Visitors to the Priest’s House Museum in Wimborne, will be able to sample a taste of an authentic Victorian Christmas and make a wish at its annual festive pudding event.

The Great Pudding Stir, on December 12, has become a key event on the East Dorset calendar and is the first in a series of festive events at the museum.

Hundreds of people stir a bowl of pudding mix, make a wish, then eat the end result.

Volunteer Eileen Carter, who has been running the event with husband Mike and assistant Pam Willis for the past 15 years, will be dressed in Victorian costume.

Eileen explained: “This is the proper old-style pudding in a cloth taken from Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management. We have a Victorian kitchen with a Victorian range, which we use to heat the pudding.

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“The pudding should always be stirred clockwise, the direction in which the sun was assumed to proceed around the earth. To stir anti clockwise has always been considered unlucky.

“The rich pudding we eat today has its roots in the kind of runny porridge served at the pagan Yuletide festivals. As time went by, spices, dried fruits, breadcrumbs and sugar were added until during the late 17th century and early 18th century when it became a more solid pudding in the shape of a large football.

“It would be tied up in a cloth, plunged into a deep pot of boiling water and left to cook for up to six hours. The finished pudding is different in texture and shape to the Christmas pudding we have today which has been steamed in a basin.”

While the Great Pudding Stir takes place, the museum will be decked out in Christmas decorations and there will be Christmas carols sung by the choir. The town’s annual Christmas parade also takes place the same day.

Eileen added: “It is a lovely occasion – the museum is filled with the smell of Christmas – you can even smell it from outside on the street.“People often tell me that it doesn’t feel as though Christmas has started until they have had a stir of the pudding!”

The Great Pudding Stir is held at The Priest’s House Museum from Saturday December 12 from 10.30am to 4pm. Admission adults £1.50, children £1.