I've always assumed that liking things made out of dried fruit is some sort of hangover from rationing, when food was so terrible that fruitcake and Xmas pudding seemed to taste good.
Nope. Things were made out of dried fruit thousands of years ago before sugar was available. The only way to sweeten food would have been to use honey or fruit, and in the absence of freezers, fridges, canning or bottling, drying would have been an excellent way of preserving fruit for the winter months.
When spices like nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and cloves were very expensive, exotic imports, only the rich could afford to use them routinely. The rest of the population had spices only at high days and holidays, e.g. Christmas and Easter.
Mincemeat, Christmas pudding and fruit cake all go back to the Middle Ages or earlier. I think the reason they are less popular now is that people have got used to eating lots of very sweet foods with less complex flavours and textures.
I love mince pies, Christmas pudding and Christmas cake. I don't like royal or fondant icing much so we make a Caribbean rum cake for our Christmas cake. It's very moist indeed and absolutely gorgeous. So looking forward to all these once-a-year treats! (And to the sprouts - I love sprouts.)