A SPROUT was spared being cooked on Christmas Day due to its uncanny resemblance to Mary and Jesus.

The vegetable was spotted by Sheila Freeman as she was preparing the Christmas dinner and was saved.

She said: "When I was preparing the sprouts I noticed one was a different shape to the rest.

"I held it up and saw the uncanny resemblance to Mary and Jesus so I took the photos.

"Everyone we showed them to saw the Mary and Jesus straight away.

"My son Stephen, thought it was 'awesome' so we just had to share them."

Sheila, who lives on Bingley Road, Cross Roads, said her sister Anita was over for Christmas from Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she lives and she was amazed.

She said they were only having a traditional Christmas dinner because they had left it too late to book a table at a local curry house.

She added: "There were just the two of us for dinner.

"We usually go out for curry on Christmas day, but I had left it too late to book this year so we had to do some last-minute shopping for traditional Christmas dinner."

Anita bought the sprouts from Albert Snowden's Greengrocers at Cross Roads, on Christmas Eve.