When do you eat the Christmas cake?!

[BIWI]

Made mine early November. Last weekend put the marzipan on, and then iced it, and decorated it a day later.

So when do we eat it? Are we supposed to leave it until Christmas day?

I love mince pies and Christmas cake, but we don't have any Christmas food before the afternoon of the 24th. The cake normally doesn't get started on until Boxing Day, too full on Christmas Day. Most days over Christmas, until twelfth night or thereabouts, we'll go for a walk and have mince pies, sausage rolls or cake afterwards.

Sausage rolls! Thanks for the reminder

I prefer Delia’s vegetarian ones though, so need to get some of those made.

I wondered this last night when I gave mine its weekly drink of whisky. Might give it till next weekend and then get stuck in.

I buy rather than make but in all honesy I tuck in as soon as it crosses the threshold. Thats why I buy about 3 every year 😁

They are delicious! I'll be making some of those this year as well, have a guest who doesn't eat pork.

Christmas cake was normally decorated and used as part of the festive decor on Christmas eve, then cut on Christmas day to have with coffee in the evening, and eaten over the next week or so.

When I was a child it would have been unthinkable to eat it before 25th.

Same, but it's still unthinkable to me at 44.

Usually marzipanned and iced on Boxing Day and then eaten from then onwards. I think of mince pies as something you mainly eat before Christmas Day and cake afterwards

Mine once got left on the sideboard because no one fancied any. Early January I thought I'd better start eating it, at which point I discovered it had been hollowed out from underneath by hungry teenage boys.

I bought a small one from M&S otherwise I would eat the lot! We’re saving it for Christmas Day. It’s only me that will eat it, but my mum will have some with me.

Yes, this was the tradition in our house when I was growing up. Christmas tea was turkey sandwiches, Christmas cake and a mince pie. Now we have Christmas lunch later in the day so don't really have the appetite for tea except for a few nibbles. We've already eaten one Christmas cake (and a box of mince pies) this year.

We shall save it for Christmas Day - probably more likely Boxing Day, as we eat dinner late on the day itself.

Here it is, in all its glory!