Figgy Pudding and A Christmas Carol: Hands-On Holiday Learning
Figgy Pudding and A Christmas Carol: Two Christmas Classics
We love “Christmas school” in our homeschool. If you’re a veteran homeschooler, I doubt I even have to explain what this means. But in case you’re not familiar with the term, it refers to taking a less structured view of education during the time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.
This isn’t to be confused with not doing school. Oh no. As homeschooling families, this is simply a time we trust in our default setting to seek out learning at every opportunity. The Christmas season naturally presents many such opportunities. Cooking family recipes and special holiday foods becomes history and culinary arts. Caroling, Christmas plays, and Nutcracker rehearsals become fine arts. Serving others with our time, money, or gifts becomes important life learning. Budgeting and baking become math.
You probably know what I mean. Read more about How to Spot a Homeschooler During the Holidays here, if you don’t.
This year, I found myself running toward Christmas school mode like it was the finish line. And there was one intentional unit I knew I wanted to make space for with my family: A Christmas Carol. As a literature lover, Charles Dickens has long been a favorite of mine. I’ve been quietly plotting for years to study this book together during the Christmas season, and this was finally the year the opportunity arrived. I’ve also always been fascinated by the Victorian era, and my family loves both food and history.
So we decided that we would not only read, learn from, and discuss A Christmas Carol, but also make the quintessential Victorian Christmas treat: figgy pudding.
With the story chosen and the season already full of meaning, the next step was gathering the ingredients that would help us bring a Victorian Christmas to life in our own kitchen. Because I needed to stock up on other holiday baking ingredients as well, I decided to buy many of the ingredients for this figgy pudding from Azure Standard.
This year, which has been very busy, I have been relying hard on Azure Standard pantry staples, gluten free items, and other organic goods that I can’t always find in my small town. It never fails to deliver on quality and good prices!
Prepping the Pantry for Hands-On Holiday Learning
One of the biggest helps in doing Christmas school well is having good ingredients on hand, especially when you’re cooking from scratch or experimenting with traditional foods. As I mentioned, Azure Standard has been a game changer for our family when it comes to keeping high-quality, budget-friendly pantry staples at home.
For assembling what I needed for a semi-traditional figgy pudding, their bulk options for organic molasses, Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free flours, and a wonderful variety of dried organic fruits made this project much simpler than surveying my local options. I’ll also admit that I felt very grown up finally having enough baking goods in bulk to justify some official-looking storage containers.
There’s also a ripple effect to stocking healthy staples this way. When we have nourishing options readily available, we naturally reach for them more often. The dried organic fruits I bought for this recipe have become one of my toddler’s favorite snacks this holiday season, and we also use them regularly in our organic gluten-free rolled oats from Azure. They make easy, nourishing breakfasts during a very full time of year.
Those same Azure Standard pantry staples have shown up elsewhere in our holiday and winter food rhythms as well. For example, we baked gluten-free gingerbread cookies for friends using many of the same ingredients as figgy pudding. I also stocked up on garlic on this Azure order, not for figgy pudding of course, but to make a batch of toum. Toum is a Lebanese garlic sauce we enjoy all throughout winter because it’s delicious stirred into soups and has long been valued as a naturally medicinal food. Fresh, good quality garlic is a must for this favorite winter recipe.
Figgy Pudding: History, Literature, and Food
Now, let’s get back to the figgy pudding. Despite the name, traditional figgy pudding is not quite what modern ears might expect. The recipe dates back to medieval England, where it was originally a dense, steamed pudding made with dried fruits, suet, spices, and often very little, or no, actual fig. By the Victorian era, figgy pudding had become a symbolic Christmas dish, rich with preserved fruits and warming spices. It was meant to be a celebratory food, something shared with loved ones… and lit on fire.
Yes, they really did light it on fire. (In fact, it is described thusly at the Crachits’ Christmas celebration in A Christmas Carol.) This is why traditional recipes call for such generous amounts of brandy. The flaming pudding was meant to be dramatically festive.
I must confess, we did not light ours on fire. But there is absolutely no judgment here if you have some carefully supervised arsonists at home. It’s historically accurate, after all.
I was also surprised to learn that figgy pudding was often prepared weeks, and sometimes even months, in advance. The combination of dried fruits, sugar, and generous amounts of brandy helped preserve the pudding while allowing the flavors to deepen over time. Rather than a last minute dessert, it was something intentionally made ahead and patiently awaited, much like the season itself.
Food has an important role, both in A Christmas Carol and in our own holiday traditions. It symbolizes warmth, generosity, restoration, and joy. In the book, when Scrooge sends the prize turkey to the Cratchits or joins his nephew’s feast, food becomes a sign of redemption, belonging, and how much human generosity and fellowship matter.
In this context, making figgy pudding alongside our reading (and sharing it with others) helped bring the world of A Christmas Carol to life in a rich and memorable way.
Our Gluten-Free Figgy Pudding
Traditional figgy pudding was typically steamed and made with suet, but for our Christmas school, we chose a slightly simplified, gluten-free version that could be made in a modern kitchen and enjoyed by our whole family. This means no suet (I could not find it), a shorter cooking time, and much less brandy than was probably traditionally used. This adaptation keeps the spirit of the original dish but is more doable for most people.
You can find the recipe I used for gluten-free figgy pudding (plus an optional brandy sauce) over at Love These Recipes, our “sister site” that has plenty of great recipes for all seasons.
So How Did Our Figgy Pudding and A Christmas Carol “Experiment” Turn Out?
Let me preface this by saying that I do not actually know how traditional figgy pudding is supposed to taste, having never had it before. But I do know this: our slightly simplified, gluten free version was incredibly delicious!
Both my immediate and extended family genuinely enjoyed it at our holiday gathering. The pudding was dense but moist, deeply flavorful, and warmly spiced, reminiscent of a fruitcake (in the best sense of the word,) with a rich sweetness from the brandy that rounded everything out beautifully. It felt festive and old fashioned in the best possible way.
All in all, it was a recipe worth repeating, and one that felt right at home alongside Dickens, candlelight, and the joyful chaos of Christmas school. I’ll probably be repeating it in future Christmases!
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Studying A Christmas Carol at Home
If you would like to bring A Christmas Carol into your own Christmas school rhythm, it does not need to be complicated. Some of the most meaningful learning happens when it is kept simple and seasonal. A few ideas we have loved include:
Read A Christmas Carol together as a family or listen to the audiobook. You may even want to bring the story to life by acting it out. The book is relatively short and generally accessible for a wide range of ages, which makes it well suited for family reading. Acting out scenes helps children engage more deeply with the characters, emotions, and moral arc of the story.
Learn more about Victorian England and Charles Dickens himself, including the social and economic realities of the Industrial Revolution. Victorian England shaped Dickens’ imagination, his compassion for the poor and downtrodden, and the moral urgency behind the stories he wrote. Consider doing a historical deep dive into the conditions faced by the working class, alongside exploring Dickens’ biography. Watching The Man Who Invented Christmas can also be a wonderful way to bring this context to life.
Connect food and tradition to the story by researching and making period inspired dishes like figgy pudding, allowing children to quite literally taste the history they are studying.
Figgy pudding and A Christmas Carol go together very nicely.In addition to baking historically inspired Christmas recipes, try incorporating Victorian era (or vintage style) crafts and traditions. Many of the Christmas customs we recognize today took shape during this time. Victorians loved using oranges and pomanders in their holiday decor, making paper ornaments, and gathering to sing carols. Exploring these traditions helps children see how history, culture, and celebration are deeply connected.
Watch film adaptations and, if possible, attend a stage production of A Christmas Carol. Different versions highlight different aspects of the story and show how literature can be interpreted across mediums. The Muppet Christmas Carol and the musical Scrooge! (both the classic film and the animated adaptation) are longtime favorites in our home.
For more specific information and ideas on how to study A Christmas Carol in your homeschool, you can check out my article Holiday Learning with A Christmas Carol.
This year, studying A Christmas Carol through historical cooking and holiday traditions has been a good reminder of how simple, effective, collaborative (and tasty) hands-on learning can be. With hands-on, holiday learning, education becomes embodied and memorable. It makes memories that stick.
Honestly, this doesn’t just make Christmas school more educational. It impacts the way we experience life as a family, which is even more meaningful. Here is me wishing you many such hands-on, homeschool memories made in the kitchen and in life in the upcoming new year!
And on that note…
Now, bring us some figgy pudding,
Now, bring us some figgy pudding,
Now, bring us some figgy pudding, and bring it out here!
Good tidings we bring to you and your kin.
We Wish you a Merry (figgy pudding and a Christmas carol) Christmas and a Happy New Year.
