Stir up Sunday

The last Sunday of the Church Year, or the Sunday before Advent, is often called 'Stir-up Sunday'. The term comes from the opening words of the collect for the day in the Book of Common Prayer of 1549 and later:
Stir-up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Christmas Pudding DayStir-up Sunday is traditional on this day for everyone in the family to take a turn at stirring the Christmas pudding, whilst making a wish.
Before Christmas puddings were sold ready-made in foil containers, they were always made at home. On Stir-up Sunday families returned from Church and gave the pudding its traditional lucky stir.
Children chanted his rhyme:
Stir up, we beseech thee,The pudding in the pot;And when we get homeWe'll eat the lot.
Christmas Pudding Traditions
A proper Christmas pudding is always stirred from East to West in honour of the three Wise Men.
A Christmas pudding is traditionally made with 13 ingredients to represent Christ and His Disciples.
Every member of the family must give the pudding a stir and make a secret wish.
A coin was traditionally added to the ingredients and cooked in the pudding. It was supposedly to bring wealth to whoever found it on their plate on Christmas Day. The traditional coin was an old silver sixpence or threepenny bit.
Other traditional additions to the pudding included a ring, to foretell a marriage, and a thimble for a lucky life.

However national and local press yesterday warn about "clear out and recycle" weekend rather than "stir up weekend". Ominously outside our chapel door there are bags for paper and boxes for plastic and glass. Our local council cabinet are due to discuss radical revisions to refuse collection arrangements to meet tough new government recycling targets - fortnightly instead of weekly collections involving residents sorting their rubbish into different recycling bins. The bins will be colour coded and there will be penalties not only for not complying but also for putting wrong items in wrong boxes.

My daily national asked yesterday if recycling is eco-terrorism at the end of an article by Claudia FitzHerbert "Who will save me from this wheelie-bin insanity?"(telegraph.co.uk/comment). "A platoon of wheelie bins appeared in my street last week. I was running a fever at the time and thought at first they were partof my illness.... my head is swimming with rubbish - what it is, where to put it, the colour of the box, the bin, the bag, the street, the week.....council recycling is farting around.....real greens don't shop, nor do they chuck. The council has created a mountain of plastic wheelie bins in the name of ecology. It's a scandal."

Yesterday Oxford. Tomorrow Scarborough. Beware the end is nigh!