This is the latest instalment in my short series of cake decorations :)

This is a mushroom made of plaster which probably dates from at least the 1960s but quite possibly even earlier. The 'Merry Xmas' message on the top made me investigate when 'Xmas' came into being. Rather surprisingly, I find it has been used since at least the 16th Century!

The 'X' is not, as I assumed, a commercial convenience for shortening the word Christ, but is in fact the Greek letter X chi, which is, in Greek, the first letter of the their word for Christ.