What nice things do you eat over Christmas?

[thesearethegoodolddays]

I'm going to start adding a few items per week to my weekly shop to hide from the kids/stash away for the festive period

What do you like to have in? I'll order some nuts and Pringles, and maybe some brandy baskets. But I'm mostly drawing a blank!

Loads of chocolate, also Elvas plums from Fortnum and Mason, nice cheeses, a kitchen full of satsumas. Might try Marron Glacê from Fortnum’s this year too.

Aldi’s stollen bites
Homemade Christmas cake
Dates
Mince pies
Christmas pud
Just Brazil’s
Ferraro Roche
Cherry liquor chocs
Yule log
Twiglets
Cheese balls

Chocolate covered ginger
Chocolate Brazil nuts
Sesame sticks (do they still exist? Pretty sure they're all garlicky)
Bombay mix
Celery with primula shrimp cheese down the middle
Open rolls with salmon and cream cheese
Cambozola and crackers or some stilton
Cheese with apricot or cranberry in, Wensleydale usually. Terrible at any other time of the year.
Fresh fruit salad - satsumas, apples, pear, banana, pineapple, melon, grapes, kiwi with squirty cream
Sherry or lemon trifle
Home made mince pies
This is a bit of a nostalgia trip but it's all stuff I'm aiming for this year.

I don't have very expensive taste when it comes to treats but stuff I only buy at Christmas:

Cheeselets and twiglets (for dp and dc)
Turkish delight in powdered sugar
Whittards hot chocolate tubs, especially the dream time and creme brulee
Mint chocolate - never buy it at any other time of year
Fancy nuts
Chutneys
If you can get some marron glace those are very festive

And then of course the natural Christmas only food stuffs - stollen, mince pies, chocolate orange, tub chocolates like celebrations, cheese boards (can't include fancy crackers as I do buy these at other times of the year).

Also for me coca cola and elderflower cordial..I find coke really festive especially as I don't buy fizzy drinks to keep in the house. And my beloved belvoir cordials are too high sugar for every day use but I indulge at Christmas... can't wait

Our advent treats are

Liebkuchen (used to order from Germany but now go to Lidl!)
Clementines
Mince pies
Eggnog (but only when I'm in the US which I won't be this year sob) and brandy

Christmas snacks/treats

Amaretto coffee
Baileys hot chocolate
York fruits
Marzipan fruits
Chocolate ginger
Christmas cake and cheese
Chestnuts

Bailleys
Marks and Spencer do a box of clementines. Can’t get enough of them.
Cheese and caramelised onion relish
Pate
Crisps
Champers
Marks also do boxes of truffles that are lovely.

Not sure about this year though. We don’t have people for Christmas Day but in the lead up we have people here for varying days and times.

Wensleydale with cranberries
Proper full fat coca-cola
M&S Belgian chocolate biscuits in the gold tin. My mam got some as a present about 6 years ago so we got her a tin every year since then. Last year we realised that we were sick of all fighting over them so now everyone gets a tin for themselves 😂 they're our absolutely essential Christmas food.
Clementines
Crackers with pate and my mam's homemade onion marmalade

Elizabeth Shaw (the round ones wrapped in gold foil).
Guylian sea shell chocolate.
Terry's chocolate orange (dark chocolate only!).
Clotted cream (for Mince pies).
Stilton and nice crackers.
M&S fruit cream chocolates (for DS).
M&S chocolate Yule log (from the fridge section. We discovered it last year and are really hoping they do it again this year!)
Various snack/buffet bits from M&S for Christmas day night/Boxing day.

Not much in addition to the standard turkey and a gammon. Blinis, smoked salmon, gravad lax. Many prawns. Stilton. Nuts in shells - although every year I swear not to buy them again. Ready made individual good sherry trifles as it is only me that eats it so a big one no use. Madjul dates. Satsumas. Red cabbage.

Baklava
Lindt chocolates (gone right off Celebrations / Quality Street)
Nice cheeses & chutneys for evening cheese boards
We treat ourselves to a couple of bottles of our favourite, very posh, very expensive red wine, that we never buy or drink at any other time
I’m excited already

Some wonderful mouth watering ideas. Yy to the lights catching qs in a bowl.

I'm so fed up with what's happened to chocolate however.
I'd really like some answers.

I make sausage rolls, a ham, stollen and German Xmas biscuits from waitrose, small stars.
Biscuits from lidl.

I love those cheese footballs that you can only find at Christmas .... plus nearly everything else mentioned on this thread.

If we're home at Christmas we have tunnock's chocolate tea cakes and snowballs. My DH loves lots of nice cheese and Guinness.

I love all the Christmas party food - usually eaten in from of the tv though.

Ooh biscuits! I love those m and s Belgian tins and also the long cigar shaped biscuits with chocolate inside.

If we're still stuck in the Middle East... I'm not sure - fancy dates maybe... some beef bacon

@AutumnleavesturntoGold

Some wonderful mouth watering ideas. Yy to the lights catching qs in a bowl.

I'm so fed up with what's happened to chocolate however.
I'd really like some answers.

I make sausage rolls, a ham, stollen and German Xmas biscuits from waitrose, small stars.
Biscuits from lidl.

Yes it's nasty! I don't know what happened to chocolate.

I just don't really buy it any more. I will buy something like Tony's Chocolonely as that does still taste nice and not waxy, but it's not very Christmassy!

Lots of companies will add palm fat instead of cocoa butter because it is cheaper. That affects chocolate flavours.
Look for chocolate with few ingredients and usually that avoid the waxy flavours

@Lalanbaba :O is this what has happened!!

I do notice that galaxy ripples seem to taste the same; maybe they don't work as will with the waxy chocolate so they had to keep it the same?

Sorry for the thread derail

Booths stollen bites
Mincemeat to make mince pies
Lots of lovely cheese
Loose leaf Christmas spiced tea

Definitely not big tubs of not very nice chocolates. I don't really think of chocolate as a particularly Christmassy thing tbh. I buy Aldi Moser Roth chocolate all year round and it's so much nicer than all that waxy palm-oil stuff!

Ohh Twiglets yes

I put Branston Pickle in a nice jar in the fridge (not a fan of exotic fruity pickles and chutneys)

Martha Stewart chocolate chip cookies ( not for Father Christmas , my DC scoff them) . I make up a batch , bake half and freeze half to bake later

I'm going to buy a bag of the Dairy Milk chocolates in a bag - they;re individually wrapped either solid chocolate , hazelnut or caramel Nice big chunky pieces and none of the coconutty taste that's sometimes in Dairy Milk .

Last year I got some lovely chocolate florentines from Aldi; I hope they have them this year!

Pretty much everything above! Belgian beer. Panforte.

I just went through this thread with an open Ocado order to hand. I don't think I should have done that.

Florentines. I adore them. M and S do nice ones

Disappointed by the number of twiglet lovers in this thread 😅

I'm dreading Christmas.

@joystir59

I'm dreading Christmas.

Because of the food?

One thing we get every Christmas is Aldi's stollen bites, they are so good.

We like salted nuts, but the almonds always have their skins on; which I hate. So last year I got a huge jar of Marcona almonds from Amazon, which are skinless. Goodness, they were lush! Fat, buttery and crunchy, so I've got some more in for this year. They were very expensive, but worth every penny.