For the love of tiny things

🎄A short note about small joys, and a little festive puzzle for you✨

The address reads 48 Doughty Street, in Bloomsbury, London. It’s a handsome townhouse, and a Grade One listed building kept largely as it would have been in his day, with his actual desk and armchair. In the dining room, where the table is set for dinner, recorded voices chit chat about nineteenth century London life. There are fragments of famous manuscripts framed on the walls and details of his life showcased in letters he wrote to various people in London society. In his study, there's a tall cupboard full of first editions. I can't even imagine what that is worth. You can go right up to his desk and almost sense him there at work, scribbling away.

The house is now a museum¹ and one of the archive audios is an extract from My Father as I Recall Him, written in 1896 by his eldest daughter Mamie, recalling a time when she was convalescing from a long illness in his study. It goes like this:

“On one of these mornings, I was lying on the sofa endeavouring to keep perfectly quiet, while my father wrote busily and rapidly at his desk, when he suddenly jumped from his chair and rushed to a mirror which hung near, and in which I could see the reflection of some extraordinary facial contortions which he was making. He returned rapidly to his desk, wrote furiously for a few moments, and then went again to the mirror. The facial pantomime was resumed, and then turning toward, but evidently not seeing me, he began talking rapidly in a low voice. Ceasing this soon, however, he returned once more to his desk, where he remained silently writing until luncheon time. It was a most curious experience for me, and one of which, I did not until later years, fully appreciate the purport. Then I knew that with his natural intensity he had thrown himself completely into the character that he was creating, and that for the time being he had not only lost sight of his surroundings, but had actually become in action, as in imagination, the creature of his pen.”

Have you guessed whose house it is yet? If not, surely, this next part will give it away.

This house is the actual place where the Christmas pudding was born. Kind of. In the basement of the house is the kitchen, which wouldn't look out of place in any rustic chic interiors magazine about country living today. But that's not the important room here. Near the kitchen is the washhouse, a small room with whitewashed walls and one window with a wooden rack hanging from the ceiling for drying clothes, and with what is known as a 'copper' in the corner. The copper is where clothing was cleaned, and water was heated for baths and it was surely this very one, which inspired the author's description in his book, A Christmas Carol, of boiling up a plum pudding for Christmas, the same celebratory dish that we now know as a Christmas pudding.

Yes, you guessed it, this house belonged to Charles Dickens. Apparently it was he who anchored the plum pudding to Christmas.

Did you know, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens was published on this day in 1843. When I was sorting some old things earlier this year, I came across a tiny illustrated red volume, about three inches high, published at the turn of this millenium by Running Press.

I opened it up to read it, and there on the inside cover were the words ‘Lots of love, Mum x (Dec, 2002)’ in her familiar handwriting.

I quickly did the maths. I had been 25 at the time, and was in the middle of a 96-day voyage around the world as an interpreter aboard Peaceboat, a cruise ship run by the Japanese NGO of the same name. Knowing I would be away for Christmas - somewhere near the Equator in fact, my mum had sent me a tiny package of Christmas gifts to take on board the ship with me and open on December 25. Besides the tiny edition of A Christmas Carol, there was a small jar of marmite, a little sack of chocolate coins and the most adorable tangerine-sized Christmas pudding to share with my cabin mates. It was only my second ever Christmas away from home, and away from England, and it meant so much.

I’m not obviously the only one to have had such an experience. Looking back at early expeditions from the heroic age of polar exploration (c.1818-1912), it is clear how the prospect of Christmas dinner had a motivating effect on morale and offered a valuable source of physical, emotional and psychological nourishment to the crew during the long, hard winter. According to archives held at the University of Cambridge, “Hair would be cut, beards shaved, and bodies, decks, and camps scrubbed and decorated in preparation for a ritualised time of relaxation,” and the explorers looked forward to their double rations with “childish delight”.²

During the famed Antarctic Discovery expedition (1901-4) led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, there was seal-liver, hot cocoa, pemmican (a concentrated fat and protein mix), biscuit and spoonfuls of jam. Scott noted in his diary, ‘I had observed Shackleton ferreting about in his bundle out of which he presently produced a spare sock, and stowed away in the toe of that sock was a small round object about the size of a cricket ball, which when brought to light, proved to be a noble “plum-pudding”’.³ I can only imagine the elation of those explorers, who perhaps had little more than a teaspoonful of that plum pudding, but savoured every tiny scrap, each mouthful tasting better for the weeks it had been cooking in the imagination.

When I was little I always secretly hoped the biggest present under the tree would be mine. In fact we often had small presents wrapped inside big boxes, to up the excitement factor. But these days it is so often the smallest, most thoughtful of things which bring the greatest joy. And having moved house many times over the years, it is often the smallest tokens which survive the clearouts ahead of each move.

The physical act of making things in miniature can be a joy too. Last Christmas, in those quiet days between Christmas and New Year, my children decided they wanted a crafting day and I was only too happy to oblige. One of them had received a stack of foam board for Christmas, so we decided to make our own winter market. Each of us had a doll (the stallholder), and we had to choose a theme for the stall, and then make everything to go with it. Our eldest made a food stall, and our youngest made a toy stall. I made ‘Olivia’s books and coffee’ complete with tiny editions of my own books, and a fine coffee menu.

We cut stuff and stuck stuff and ate leftover chocolates for many hours that day, and it was a total joy.

Fun fact, when my book Kokoro came out earlier this year, my younger brother babysat while Mr K and I went out for our anniversary dinner, and while we were out he and the girls made a little launch video featuring the dolls and the bookstand. To the girls’ delight it got more than 8,000 views on my Instagram. It makes me smile every time I watch it.

Anyway, this year I have been thinking about what to offer as gifts in small packages. A few precious words, a written promise of shared time, little objects which capture a memory, or small things which acknowledge and support a dream. What is the best tiny gift you have ever given, or received, I wonder?

Wishing you a restful, beautiful holiday season, filled with tiny joys!

Beth Xx

PS If you want tiny joy in your inbox every Monday, come and join my private writing community SoulCircle here on Substack, with writing inspiration every week, all year round. Click here to join.

PS If you find this time of year hard, you might find some comfort in the latest edition of my Calm Christmas Podcast, Episode 6 Ancient Embers, which is out today on Apple, Spotify and Substack.

If you would like a tiny joy in your inbox each week in 2025, and you haven’t yet joined my private writing community SoulCircle, why not gift yourself an Annual subscription, starting today? You can just upgrade to paid or go to https://bethkempton.substack.com/subscribe and choose Annual to get two months free and a year full of writing inspiration!

1. I would highly recommend the Charles Dickens Museum at 48 Doughty Street if you are ever in London.

2. https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/having-a-polar-christmas

3. ibid