I love Christmas cake. 

Not any Christmas cake. Not every Christmas cake. But my mum’s Christmas cake, for whatever reason, gives me so much joy. 

It’s not that her cakes are crazy-fancy or anything. She uses store-bought mixed fruit. They’re not iced and there’s no surprising secret ingredient, but for whatever reason Mum has mastered the perfect Christmas fruit cake. They’re moist. They’re dense. They’re heavy. They’re a highlight of a Tame family Christmas. 

Perhaps it all just comes down to practice. She used to make ten or twelve every year and give them as gifts. But the moment I get home every summer, Mum has a couple of cakes waiting on the bench, and I carve off big hunks to eat while standing in the kitchen. Sometimes Dad eats it with blue cheese. 

But however well Christmas fruit cakes hit my taste buds, they also hit my stomach. Is it a PH thing? I dunno. Maybe the mixed fruit starts to ferment or sour in my gut? It doesn’t happen to anyone else. Not another soul. All I know is there is a direct correlation between my eating mum’s fruit cake and no one wanting to be within a twenty metre radius. 

“Oh GOD! What IS that?! Is something dead?” 

“Get the children! Ahh!” 

“Burn our clothes! Burn our clothes!” 

I don’t know exactly what happens, but somewhere deep inside me there is a chemical reaction of sorts. I’m the first to admit... it’s just awful. Putrid. The smell will curl your ears. The moment a bit of cake hits my stomach it’s like that scene from Titanic. 

“Are there any survivors?” 

Call it the Christmas Cake Curse. 

My mum flogs herself with Christmas baking. Mince pies, shortbread, mars bar slice, Russian fudge. It’s too much! We can’t fit all the baking in the cupboards. We’ve had to establish a Tame family Christmas baking spillover zone. And yet for all the abundance, all of that choice, my favourite Christmas treat just happens to be the one that’ll end up peeling the paint off the walls. 

Baking is an act of love. Baking, when you know how it affects your son, is an even greater act of love. 

But the greatest act of love this summer will be my noble decision to take a piece of fruit cake and politely excuse myself, outside.