The Way We Lived Then: Christmas Dinner

“Then they all went to church, as a united family ought to do
on Christmas Day, and came home to a fine old English early
dinner at three o’clock, -- a sirloin of beef a foot-and-a-half
broad, a turkey as big as an ostrich, a plum pudding bigger than
the turkey, and two or three dozen mince-pies. “That’s a very
large bit of beef, “ said Mr. Jones, who had not lived much in
England latterly. “It won’t look so large, “said the old gentleman,
“when all our friends downstairs have had their say to it.”
“A plum-pudding on Christmas Day can’t be too big,” he said
again, “if the cook will but take time enough over it. I never
knew a bit go to waste yet.”
- Anthony Trollope, Christmas at Thompson Hall