Of Trifle, Mince Pie and Plum Pudding

A battalion of wooden toy soldiers in bright red tunics marches across a living room cabinet, providing an appropriate seasonal escort for about 25 ladies gathered at a lavishly decorated Ondulando home in east Ventura.

Two dozen Christmas crackers snap almost simultaneously as they are pulled, spilling their contents of paper hats, plastic novelties and ribald jokes. Next to a warming fire, a table is laden with such delicacies as mince pies, sherry trifle, sausage rolls and, of course, tea.

The occasion is the annual Christmas meeting of the west Ventura County chapter of the Daughters of the British Empire. The social and philanthropic organization is a bastion of English culture and tradition in the United States, although as members concede, the stuffy moniker is somewhat archaic considering the sun set on the empire decades ago.

Its stiff upper lip motto: “Not Ourselves, But The Cause.”

Founded in 1909, the group’s main focus is to financially support four homes for elderly people of British ancestry around the country. But this occasion is a celebration and reminiscence of all things British, a Dickensian-themed oasis for those who long for a proper English Christmas in casual, come-as-you-are California.

“Christmastime seems to be a time when you do remember how you grew up in any culture probably,” said Sylvia Bailey, regent for the east county chapter in Thousand Oaks, which held a similar British Christmas for its members last weekend. “I think it enriches life to be able to hold onto parts of your heritage.”

And hold on they do.

The east county chapter’s Christmas party included such traditional English party games as Pass the Parcel, a game akin to musical chairs where guests take turns unwrapping a multilayered present.

The celebration also was punctuated by the pops of Christmas crackers, brightly colored party favors stuffed with novelty items that dinner guests share at the outset of a meal. By pulling on each end, the cracker snaps apart revealing the contents.

Many emigres still delight in a traditional English Christmas dinner of roast turkey, sage and onion stuffing, Brussels sprouts, Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes, followed by Devon cream with plum pudding--a dense, rich, fruit-laden concoction that is saturated in brandy and briefly set aflame before it is consumed.

Essential elements of a British Christmas such as mince pies--pastry shells dusted with sugar and filled with a sweet brown mixture of candied fruits--are readily available at specialty stores.

But other aspects of a British Christmas are difficult to duplicate.

Despite the proliferation of cable channels, for instance, the Queen’s annual Christmas address to the Commonwealth--an institution in most British homes--is unavailable on this side of the pond.

The lengthy holiday season in the U.S. that begins with Thanksgiving is perplexing to some Britons. The “holidays” seem to drag on forever, diluting the effect. By the same token, they appear to abruptly halt after Christmas Day, Bailey said.

In England, Christmas is an intense two-day celebration that concludes Dec. 26 on what is known as Boxing Day--so called because in the last century well-to-do Victorians on that day would give gifts in boxes to the poor. Today, Boxing Day is marked by another round of festivities.

Moreover, Christmas trees are unceremoniously dumped in the trash soon after the big day in the U.S., making the Twelve Days of Christmas an unknown observance. “This thing about not taking down your decorations until Twelfth Night is something I miss, but you start so early over here you’re sick of them,” Bailey said.

Indeed, the two nations may share a common language, but the vernacular of an English Christmas is as alien to many Americans as a candied yam would be in London.

British expatriate Beryl Tognazzini recalls an American woman who bought Christmas crackers at her English-themed restaurant and store in Ojai. She later returned, and angrily slammed her purchase on the counter and demanded to know why none of them actually contained edible crackers.

That incident notwithstanding, an increasing number of Ventura County residents, their heads apparently filled with visions of dancing sugar plums and freshly-fallen snow on cobblestone streets, are embracing British Christmas traditions, Tognazzini said. “I am finding the crackers are catching on with a lot of Americans,” she said. “They call them poppers.”

Tognazzini estimates half her clientele is British and the remainder Anglophiles.

Ojai resident Arthur Greycloud is among the latter group. The retired electrical engineer tries to visit England annually, has made plum pudding for many years and considers trifle his signature dessert. It is a modest effort to embrace the ambience of what he sees as a less materialistic culture with deeper roots.

“It’s the way America was in the 1950s, with no crime rate [and where] people still have manners,” said the Teton Sioux descendant of England. “I do a good British trifle for every major holiday. . . . My friends have to put up with trifle and many of them have developed a taste for it.”

Still, few Anglophiles and county residents of English descent have a nostalgic yearning for the dreary, soggy British weather common at this time of year. Contrary to romantic Christmas card images, dismal gray rather than sparkling white is likely to be the prevailing color of the season.

But that doesn’t diminish the relevance of eating an alcohol-laced dense Christmas fruit cake complete with marzipan and thick icing. “To keep your traditions going is important for all of us,” said Hazel Facciano, who came to the U.S. for a year to work in the mid-1960s and never returned home. “It’s part of your culture and that’s what America is all about. We all bring a little bit of culture to a new country and that’s what makes it so exciting.”

Times correspondent Nick Green is a British citizen who will be pulling Christmas crackers and eating plum pudding today.