The plum pudding trick

Which was the best Christmas party ever? Perhaps it took place on Boxing Day, Tuesday 26 December 1843, at the home of Nina Macready, wife of the famous actor. It was her birthday, but her husband was away on tour, and to cheer herself up she decided to give a children’s party, but invited a lot of grown-ups too. One of them was Jane Carlyle. Her grumpy husband, battling with his book on Cromwell, refused to go. She was feeling dyspeptic, having been obliged, for the first time, to stuff a turkey. Feeling horrible on the morning of Boxing Day, Jane was about to send an apology when a note arrived from a distraught Mrs Macready, imploring her not to ‘disappoint my poor little daughter’. So she dressed up, and ordered a fly, and was given a characteristic parting accolade by her grinning husband, ‘My dear, I think I never saw you look so bilious.