Keep the Tradition Alive – Stir Up Sunday

For those who celebrate this festive time of year, Christmas is a time to come together with family and friends, spend precious time with each other and celebrate the memories we’ve made over the past year.

One way of doing this is by following Christmas traditions, from carol singing to making a wreath to hang on the front of your door.However, a study last year revealed that younger generations are choosing to let go of some Christmas traditions, including Stir-up Sunday. The beloved annual gathering when families prepare the Christmas pudding and place a sixpence into the mix could be falling out of favour.

The Royal Mint commissioned a survey on the awareness of Stir-up Sunday and Christmas traditions to see if this is really the case.

Are Christmas Family Traditions Important?

Celebrating family traditions is the perfect way to get everyone in the Christmas spirit in the lead up to the big day. Traditions give you something to look forward to as you count down the days, and are a wonderful reason to spend time with your loved ones. Whether they are classic traditions or ones that you have created yourselves, for some families they are an important aspect of the festive period.

Our survey of 2,000 people from across the UK population revealed that 88.6% of them celebrated Christmas. 52.1% said that they followed some Christmas traditions, and 26.1% said that they followed all of their traditions each year.

Furthermore, 28.6% considered festive traditions to hold significant value, whilst 41.2% viewed them as fairly important. Around 80% of the people who felt that Christmas traditions held value or were fairly important felt that spending quality time with loved ones was the primary reason for the importance of traditions.

Whilst some people felt that following traditions kept the magic of Christmas alive, this wasn’t the case for everyone who took part in the survey.

Awareness of Stir-Up Sunday

Did you know that over three-quarters of those polled in our survey had never heard of Stir-up Sunday? Just 22.7% had heard of it, with only around 8.7% stating they had a good understanding of what it actually is.

Of those who do celebrate Christmas traditions during the festive period, only 4% said that they celebrate Stir-up Sunday. Out of the people we surveyed who said they had some understanding of Stir-up Sunday, only 19% said that it was a tradition that they follow every year, whilst only 23% said they have occasionally participated in this celebration.

The survey also revealed that out of the age groups who took part, baby boomers and millennials were more likely to have heard of Stir-up Sunday than the younger Gen Z.

What is Stir-Up Sunday?

Stir-up Sunday takes place on the Sunday before Advent. The whole family comes together to prepare the Christmas pudding for the big day, adding a sixpence to the mix. Each member of the family takes it in turns to stir the pudding mix before they add the coin, making a wish as they do so. Whoever finds the lucky sixpence in their portion on Christmas Day is said to enjoy wealth and good luck in the year to come.

It is thought that Stir-up Sunday dates back to the reign of Queen Victoria, with Prince Albert introducing the British public to the Christmas pudding. The sixpence, a beloved denomination already associated with traditions and luck, became the coin of choice for adding to the Christmas pudding mix.

You can use an old sixpence, a gold sixpence or a silver sixpence – some families even use the same coin every year and pass it down through the generations for others to enjoy and cherish. Whilst the sixpence is a crucial ingredient for the Christmas magic, the most important aspect of this classic British tradition is spending quality time with your loved ones.

Why not recapture that Christmas magic and revive the tradition for you and your family? With a sixpence from The Royal Mint, you can save the tradition from fading into history and make it your own special family event.