Make your own and leave out the peel! Substitute another dried fruit instead!

You will have to come up to collect them!

@Ian - We had Stir up Sunday every week. If it wasn’t a row it was stirring up the loaves and fishes in the kitchen for the hoards of unexpected visitors!

Shame on you! It’s another five weeks until stir up Sunday.

I think mince pies did contain mincemeat originally, so would be barred to Roman Catholics on Fridays, penitential seasons, the eve of feast days, etc.

I’m so glad Protestants don’t have purgatory

When you fill the cases add a few bits of extra fruit and a drop of brandy!

Mince pies did once contain meat…it was a way of using the meat and making it palatable.

GM a tip for adding booze to the christmas cake or pud once it’s cooked…use a large (20ml at least) hypodermic syringe… prod a hole with a skewer and then insert the syringe. Similarly for adding the extra to the mincepies ;-0

I’m thinking of running a sweep on how long before the staff at the school I used to teach at put in an order for the bosses mince pies……last year I had a little bet with myself as to who it would be that asked first…It was a complete outsider!

Worry not I will give you a dispensation!

I remember back in the days when it was the rule to fast from midnight before going to communion, that a two hour fast was introduced on a Holy Thursday before the evening Mass. I always spent the day baking with my mother and innocently licked my finger with sugar on it. You guessed I broke my fast and was not allowed to take communion!!

They were rules made by men and not by God. That was the beginning of the slippery road for me.

I always wondered why we were not allowed to eat Mince Pie on Friday when I was a child. The priest claimed there was meat in it;so I always thought that a mince was an animal.

Now, all these years later,and I do mean years later, I find that the meat in Mince Pie consists of 4 oz. of suet. What a gyp!!!!

Our Thanksgiving Day over here is always on a Thursday. That means lots of turkey and Mince pie was left over in the frig that could not be touched the next day because “No Meat On Friday.” It was very tempting but we didn’t touch!

While I am on the subject, do you think there are any people in Purgatory who are there simply because they ate a hot dog or a piece of mince Pie on a Friday?

Please answer quickly because I did once sneak a piece of mince pie on a Friday before the ban was lifted and I want to know if I should be worried.

My mother only used raisins & sultanas, she always said currants were dirty! Don’t ask me why. Perhaps it was they were so small and difficult to clean.