tradition

Happy Hot Cross Bun Day, friends!

When I was growing up, my brothers and I were blessed with parents who kept Very Strict Adherence to holiday traditions. (Actually, my bet is that it was largely my mother's doing but my father also had his own holiday rhythms that can't be denied.) For instance, in our house, Christmas was not allowed to begin until December 1st. No exceptions. That meant Christmas carols, Christmas shopping, Christmas cards - you name it - all had to wait until December 1, which was duly welcomed in with an anxious, excited flurry of Christmas-like activity.

Similarly, at Easter there was a time for everything, and everything for its proper time. Hot cross buns were strictly for Good Friday and Good Friday only, and the Easter Bunny did not even dream of coming with his chocolate booty until first thing Easter Sunday morning (not a minute earlier). As I got older, and particularly when I left home, I remember feeling a sense of existential shock that other (obviously more wanton and much less controlled) people would scoff hot cross buns, with impunity, weeks before Good Friday. Weeks before, I tell you.

Of course, such strict observance of rules must inevitably lead to rebellion in some. In his early adult days, one of my brothers would boldly tease my mother by buying, and eating, small Easter eggs as soon as they arrived in the shops. (She protested, of course, but it seems rebellion doesn't fall far from the tree. Recently she admitted her own pre-Easter indiscretions which were only forgiven because they involved jellied Easter Bunnies, which doesn't seem to fall into either the Good Friday or Easter Sunday categories of food.)

Nevertheless, I have rarely strayed from The Rules and continue to uphold these traditions with my very own small family. This morning, after a beautiful walk on the local, partly frozen golf course - complete with beavers, foxes and the wonderful plethora of returning birds - I continued my own tradition (begun last year) of making fresh gluten- and dairy-free hot cross buns for Good Friday.


They were delicious but, I'm afraid to say, we also continued the tradition of eating almost all of them in one sitting.


They were only small, though.

And very nutritious, of course.

And good for the spirit, undoubtedly.

Come to think of it, it would have been wrong not to have had a good go at them.

Okay, my OTL made me do it.

There are three left. I wonder what the rules say about having left overs for Saturday, or whether they must be finished off on Good Friday?