Must haves on your festive cheese board?

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I am a massive cheese lover - French, stinking, oozing sorts especially - but after 2 pregnancies am a bit out of the habit.
Really looking forward to a Boxing Day cheese board - but am catering for PIL who prefer mild, hard traditional cheese so am looking for a mix of crowd pleasers..
What do you have?

Truffle honey

Add Comte to your list

Can't go wrong with a northern British blue: Yorkshire Blue, Harrogate Blue, Shropshire Blue. All good, smelly stuff

Dumb question, which grapes black or green or does it not matter?? Thanks

Waah! I can't have most of the nice cheese this Christmas because I'm
pregnant. So, cheese lovers, do you have any recommendations for nice, 'safe' cheese?

My cheeseboard:

Strong cheddar
Edam
Bavarian Smoked Cheese
Danish Blue
Brie/Camembert

Plus anything else that takes my fancy. However, there will be no goats cheese under any circumstances. Or cheese with fruit in it. Fruit with cheese is nice though.

Tried gorgonzola once. I won't be having it again. I once got some posh cheese from Waitrose with a line of ash in it. I can't remember what it was called.

Ooh and bread is a nice alternative to crackers and biscuits (but don't forget the oatcakes). I got for a sliced crusty french baguette and some toasted granary, as they go with most things. A nutty loaf, like walnut, is great with goats cheese and sourdough bread really brings out the flavour in cheddar.

Godminster cheddar is fantastic but they don't sell it near me. Leagrams Organic cheddar is nice but no Godminster. We'll also have a tasty Lancs and Wensleydale.

I sent DH cheese shopping for Christmas once. He came back with tasty Lancashire, garlic Lancashire, Lancashire with black pepper and crumbly Lancashire. He couldn't see the problem!

Ripe brie
White stilton
Blue stilton
Cambezola
Applewood smoked cheddar
Gruyere
A strong cheddar
A soft herby cheese (personally I love a bit of Boursin , but DH is a cheese snob and gets something a bit posher, too)
We usually have a few novelty Xmas cheeses like wensleydale & cranberry, although I dont like them).
Cant abide goat's cheese, but get one for DH.

I go a bit mental with different types of cracker, bread sticks, fruit, chutney and meats to go with.

The cheese is the best bit of Christmas!

I am having a Scottish themed christmas this year- so
Caboc
Arran Cheddar
Lanark Blue
Teviotdale

Bit of Stilton (cos it's Christmas)
Shropshire Blue (or DD - aged 9 - will have a fit!!)

Good mature cheddar
Probably a block of Dubliner- slightly sweet hard cheese

A brie or camembert type - will go to cheesemongers early Christmas week and see what's good (we often get something different for Christmas)
Possibly a 2nd soft rind cheese, which would be a bit more adventurous

After that, we might get another hard cheese (Edam, Gouda, Emmentaul, Comte etc), a goat's cheese (log of a soft rind), some sheep's cheese (could be hard or soft), or a soft cheese like Boilie or Boursin. And end up using up bits and pieces we already have.

I like to get a whole small hard cheese that is a bit different in the Farmer's market in early December, to open over Christmas. And get softer ones in the cheesemonger near us in Christmas week (just early mornings, as it gets MAD there).

We're kind of a cheesy family.....

(We like Havarti and Gouda and Smoked Applewood for sandwiches generally, I like bits of Manchego with bits of cured ham to nibble, we use feta in salads and cooking all the time, Gorgonzola pasta is a regular dinner, and mozzarella has all sorts of uses).

Appleby's Cheshire- it's beautiful and I love it.
Mrs Kirkhams' Lancashire
Stichelton
Tunworth, what a fantastic cheese
A good cheddar, either Godminster or Westcombe
Boursin cos I love it even though its mass produced stuff.
And Colston Basset stilton

Smoked applewood should never be near a cheese board deserving of the name.

For PG cheeses, from my own recall, any hard cheese is ok but especially any that are matured 6 months+ (possibly pasteurized came into it?). There are a lot of soft rind cheeses that are pasteurized, so they are ok too.

I stayed away from anything blue, any unpasteurized soft cheese and anything that was already open (so no Philadelphia in a sambo from a deli counter for example, but I would eat it from a pack that I'd opened and knew how long it was open and stored properly in fridge at home).

Brie
Goats cheese
Strong cheddar
Y Fenni
Cambozola
Red Leicester
Blue Stilton
White stilton or wensleydale with some sort of fruit in it
Soft herby cheese
Fig and three nut boursin

Walnut bread
Selection of crackers/oatcakes

Grapes
Celery
Caramalised red onion chutney
Truffle honey
Chilli jam

Can you tell it is my favourite part of christmas

Ooh i love cheese - we even had a cheese wedding cake which consisted of: Somerset brie, Applewood smoked, yarg, celtic promise, and a goats cheese. Bloody lovely it was.

On the board this year will be
Wensleydale with cranberries
Some stinky blue with its own knife
Brie
Comte
Goats cheese
Good Cheddar

Misty9, I love the idea of a cheese wedding cake! What is Celtic Promise like?

I highly recommend it as an alternative - I can't eat cake (gf) and DH doesn't like it, so it was perfect for us!
I've been corrected by dh in that it wasn't celtic promise (it was supposed to be but stock ran out) so we had something else (I think...)

Just checked the wedding photos (!) and it was definitely Celtic promise, and something else that we can't remmeber! Sorry, not interesting for anyone else...

Gorgonzola, my absolute favourite cheese. No one else likes it so I get to scoff the whole lot

We will also have Camembert, A nice strong Cheddar, Emmanthal or Gruyere and maybe a garlic and herb roule.

Plus tons of crackers, nice butter, grapes, salad and chutneys.

Misty9, were there really no cats bum faces about there not being a 'proper' cake? I love the idea of cheeses.

We I thought about that last minute and we had cupcakes too

Sage Derby is my favourite at Christmas.

A cheese wedding cake is such a great idea

Ah, go on then

sorry op!