Do you buy chocolates, sweets and nuts etc at Christmas time?

[LastNightMyPJsSavedMyLife]

Friend has a large family, not stuck for money and never buys any of the above and never has. Their children are between 26 and 17. Got me wondering if it's quite the norm?

How terribly, terribly posh!

Paynes chocolate brazils, oh and yes, orangettes too

Chocolates yes

Actual sweets and nuts used to but they never get eaten

Not really nuts and sweets.
I have vivid memories of being a child and my parents and grandparents buying nuts in shells and us having to crack them open with nutcrackers.
I could never crack the walnuts or Brazil nuts.
I would give up. No wonder we were thin! I used more calories trying to crack the damn things.
Chocolates, yes. After eight mints scream Christmas to me. It’s the only time I ever buy them. Same with match makers. My posh auntie would buy Ferero Roches. Terribly expensive.
I also put a toblerobe in the dcs stockings too.
I’ve never been bothered about Quality Street though.
Oh and I always got a chocolate stocking when I was a child or selection box.

I didn’t grow up with boxes of chocs (or any food really) just around the place for general sharing and found it very strange when I married into a family who would have a Quality Street tin and Celebration tubs on the go as well as a huge pile of mince pies, nuts, sweets, crisps etc that anyone could just help themselves to over Christmas.

I’m trying to be more like my ILs were but I don’t think I’m doing a good job at having so much expensive food as a free for all. Get very anxious at Christmas about who’s eating what and will they be hungry at meal times and will I run out of anything.

My aunt would buy me a stollen cake every year. I don’t like it but bless her the thought was there.
I don’t like mince pies, Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, sprouts, nor do I eat most meats/birds.
I do enjoy Christmas though.
My lovely grandma made absolutely everything herself. She even peeled and pickled her own onions! Again I have memories of helping her with tears streaming down my face as the onions were so so strong. Nothing like the shop bought ones now.

I was going to John Lewis tomorrow to refill the family Quality Street tin but I fear I may have to provision with chocolate covered raisins enrobed fruits from a high end chocolatier's instead.

So far in my stash:
A kilo of M&Ms to fill a pretty jar. Should wankery prevail I will extract the non-festive colours unlikely
A large box of G&B mini bars, some of which will find their way into homemade crackers
Chocolate oranges, tubes of jelly tots, and Reese's PB Christmas trees for the stockings

That should do. I prefer cheese tbh.

You are my people

Fair enough! It’s just not something I have experienced or noticed with friends or family.

When I was a kid my mum would start preparing in the autumn. She'd make pickled onions and start a Christmas cupboard. She'd buy an extra thing in the supermarket each week to put in the cupboard. It was chocolates and treats which we wouldn't normally have. We were very poor and it was important to my mum to make it feel special.

I don’t buy any of the Quality St. etc. tubs any more, but will usually buy After Eights/Bendicks, and there are usually presents of chocolates. FC usually brings me a mega box of Maltesers, too.

I have dropped hints about rose and violet creams, but so far in vain. I wish you could get boxes containing just orange creams, but perhaps it’s just as well you can’t…

We always have nuts anyway - dh is something of an addict.

My Nan used to buy one of those big tins of Quality Street in the 70s. It was such a treat.

The current version of Quality Street pales into comparison. All of those 'tins' now contain cheap shite chocolate and nasty wrappers.

You can't get them easily , but I do like a Tunis cake at Christmas time.

I saw a huge tin of quality street in one of the supermarkets the other day , it was twenty pounds !

https://www.whitakerschocolates.com/products/dark-chocolate-orange-fondant-creams-tub

There are also packets of just orange Quality street in some shops if that helps.

Ooh, thank you! I would drop heavy hints to FC, but he’s inclined to forget, so to be on the safe side will buy some myself. 😋

We don't. Neither of us has a sweet tooth and we find that we get gifted enough of the stuff at Christmas to last us until Easter!

We do buy A LOT of cheese though. 😍

Totally!
we’re a greedy house so there are always nuts and chocolate all year round. But at Christmas we go a level up and buy beautiful large boxes of chocs (William Curly, Pierre Marcolini - no expense soared), I’ve already ordered glacé fruit from south of France. I’ll dip some walnuts in chocolate myself

I always buy chocolate. When I was growing up, my parents always used to buy nuts in shells and I would have a small tin of sweets or a chocolate orange in my stocking.

Marzipan liqueur chocolates??

I'm off to Lidl

Yes. Things we buy at Xmas that we don't the rest of the year:
Choc truffles
Turkish delight
Peanuts and cashews
Something like roses in a tub.
After eights (I will die without these).
Cheese shapes

I buy stockpile, hoard and resource guard caramelised mixed nuts. They are my favourite and I love them.

If it is a large family, they are probably all inundated with Christmas presents from family and friends containing sweets & chocolates, so they don't bother buying any.

We never buy wine or biscuit assortments as DH gets loads of gifts from work.

I like the Marks chocolate aisle at Christmas. They do their own version of a lot of things like Ferrero rocher, matchmakers, cherry liqueur etc. Plus fancy things like nougat, marzipan, Italian stuff like gianduiotto

I have sometimes put loose nuts in their shells in the DC’s stockings for tradition’s sake, not every year though. But they were always were enthusiastic when I did.

We always used to have a tin of Roses or Quality Street, for dipping into while watching Christmas TV, (which changed to always Quality Street when Roses went downhill).

Like so many others, I won’t be bothering this year now both the wrappers and the chocolates are so disappointing. I will get some pick n mix Lindt balls for the DC’s stockings and leave it at that.