This weekend is the last before advent which means only one thing: this Sunday is Stir-up Sunday and time to make the Christmas pudding. Except I won’t be making a pudding because my brother usually arrives armed with a posh one from one London food hall or another, so I’m making the cake instead.

Which poses the question: how to decorate it this year? This is last year’s effort (pictured), which paid homage to a year in which we celebrated the Olympics, the diamond jubilee and the pitter patter of tiny royal feet. (I was rather pleased with the feet – I sprayed pink footprints I had left over from a christening cake with edible gold spray).

I’m a sucker for a themed cake, but am rather at a loss for momentous things that have happened in 2013. We had the hottest summer since 2006, MPs gave the thumbs up to the same-sex marriage bill and of course there was the birth of Prince George. I could do a newly-wed gay couple lounging on a beach with Prince George building a sandcastle, but it’s not very Christmassy.

Better put my thinking cap on.