FOREWORD BY AGATHA CHRISTIE
This book of Christmas fare may be described as "The Chef's Selection." I am the Chef!
There are two main courses: The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and The Mystery of theSpanish Chest; a selection of Entrées: Greenshaw's Folly¹, The Dream, and The Under Dog; and aSorbet: Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds.
The Mystery of the Spanish Chest may be described as a Hercule Poirot Special. It is a case inwhich he considers he was at his best! Miss Marple, in her turn, has always been pleased with herperspicuity in Greenshaw's Folly.
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding is an indulgence of my own, since it recalls to me, verypleasurably, the Christmases of my youth.
After my father's death, my mother and I always spent Christmas with my brother-in-law's familyin the north of England - and what superb Christmases they were for a child to remember! AbneyHall had everything! The garden boasted a waterfall, a stream, and a tunnel under the drive! TheChristmas fare was of gargantuan² proportions. I was a skinny child, appearing delicate, butactually of robust³ health and perpetually hungry! The boys of the family and I used to vie witheach other as to who could eat most on Christmas Day. Oyster⁴ Soup and Turbot went downwithout undue⁵ zest⁶, but then came Roast Turkey, Boiled Turkey and an enormous Sirloin of Beef.
The boys and I had two helpings⁷ of all three! We then had Plum Pudding, Mince-pies, Trifle andevery kind of dessert. During the afternoon we ate chocolates solidly. We neither felt, nor were,sick! How lovely to be eleven years old and greedy!
What a day of delight from "Stockings" in bed in the morning, Church and all the Christmashymns, Christmas dinner, Presents, and the final Lighting⁸ of the Christmas Tree!
And how deep my

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