Mince pies from the pantry on Christmas thieve

IT’S a truism that Christmas comes earlier every year, and like all truisms it must have been true some time.

But there are compensations, of which mince pies appearing on supermarket shelves is one.

If I’ve got that right, that is. They might be on sale all the year round, like hot cross buns you’re supposed to eat at Easter.

It’s only in the festive season, however, that Mrs R buys them. And I eat them, when I feel peckish. The ones I’m scoffing now came from Morrisons, half a dozen for £1.75. They’re a good size, lots of filling and crumbly pastry.

But I don’t care for the icing sugar dusting on top. It makes them too sweet, almost guilt-inducing. My mother made all our mince pies. I loved watching her with the tin pastry cutter, slicing out tops for the pastry bottoms, and prodding holes as a finishing touch.

Hot from the oven they were bliss, and stolen from the pantry under the stairs on the way up to bed almost as pleasurable.

I can taste them now. They were nothing like as sweet as the Morrisons ones, and only half the size. More delicate, not a tea party luxury.

My mother also made the Christmas cake, weeks ahead. It was as heavy as a brick, but I got to clean the mixing bowl, with a spoon – or better still, fingers.

I suspect this is a pleasure denied to most children nowadays.

How many mothers have the time, or the skill, for home baking?

They might watch it on the telly, but I bet they no longer have domestic science lessons at school.

Not like Mrs R, aged 11, proudly carrying a stew in a pan and a rice pudding home on the bus.