What's in your treat corner and when does it officially open?

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A throwback from my childhood Christmases, always a corner of the living room with treats but normally under strict instructions not to be touched until Christmas Eve or else we'd end up eating them all. So we've got those pretzel cracker things that come in little plastic compartments, Lebkuchen, Quality Street, liquorice all sorts, jelly babies, mint and orange matchmakers, toffifee, Pringles and After Eight mints. If it were 1992 and my Mum was still alive, we'd also have rum balls, orange and lemon slices and that toffee you could only break with a hammer...

Why would you lay it all out on display in a corner of the living room and tell people they couldn’t eat it. And why is it your decision?

is it financial? If it is, put it in a cupboard, if not, then you can spend an extra ten or twenty quid on treats surely?

Pringles in every flavour. We've gone through salt and vinegar and prawn cocktail so far.

Tubs of chocolate, sweets, Pringles, peanuts, Turkish delight, dates, biscuits loads of treats that we don’t normally have.

Tucking into these starts tomorrow when half term starts, however, when they are gone, they are gone!

Where are the "Eat me" dates and the Radio times op? 😂

I do the same in a true nod to the 70's. The coffee table now has Holly shaped bowls piled with tangerines and nuts, accompanied by my squirrel nutcracker.

I have jars of Orange mini daim bars chocolate balls and purple Quality Street (can't have in bowls in case the dog swipes them).

Although strangely the only thing he wants is to drink the water out of the floating candle dish and chew on the wax. 🙄

Everyone had a Christmas cupboard where I grew up and Derry Girls had a great episode with one.

My dc and DH are all off and MIL is here so the cupboard is open. Except it's a box because I don't have spare cupboard space.

Chocolate biscuits, fancy popcorn, crisps, bar mix, toffee etc.

We can't have anything out on display due to a greedy Labrador with no boundaries 😂 but have a Christmas cupboard with roses, quality street, various Pringles, nuts, M&S shortbread, biscuits for cheese and mince pies. We tend to crack it open the weekend before Christmas.

When I was a kid my mum had a big empty roses tin (back when the tins were huge) and every week from about September she would buy a multipack of chocolate bars and decant them into The Tin. By Christmas it would be overflowing but we weren't allowed to even think about The Tin until Christmas Eve. Fond memories 🥰

It was a tradition for many of us left over from the 70's and 80's. It was a part of Christmas as much as the decorations going up...a few days before Christmas the coffee table or an area in the living room started to be piled with treats in preparation for the celebrations, because it was exciting and it looked "fancy".

It added to the excitement build up as a kid , looking at everything you were going to enjoy.

Dark choc Florentines, dark chocolate selection box, salted caramel truffles, mini gingerbread, piccallili, passionfruit curd, ginger shortbread, dark choc biscuits, pate

Have had to replenish a couple items that I already finished this week as I didn’t have the willpower to wait!

I'm so glad to read about this, I grew up with my dad dropping little treats he had picked up on his way home from work on to a little coffee table in our lounge room, it is on of my fondest memories of the lead up to Christmas.

He passed away a few years ago and I continue to do this now for my children.

We've broken into a bag of heroes and the salted peanuts already !
We have celebrations and roses, after eights, Lindor balls, tesco's cheese balls ( large pack) and some shortbread biscuits.

Nobody is allowed to touch the Christmas cupboard until Saturday although I do open it regularly to admire It. There is also the Christmas fridge which is our spare one and that’s looking very yummy too, full of drinks, wine, cheese, hams olives and a massive side of smoked salmon

Oh gosh that's a blast from the past those compartments of Pretzels. I'm not sure anyone really liked them but we ate them anyway. The Eat Me dates were my dad's Christmas treat as were nuts to crack. This thread has reminded me that I haven't bought any nuts. This is the first year I've not bought Quality Street due to them tasting awful now and the crappy paper wrappers. The main attraction was the shiny foil jewel coloured wrappers. I've got the M&S version instead.

Christmas food comes out on Christmas Eve although we are baking on Saturday so we will eat some of what we bake. I've had a couple of baileys so far.

I'm going to try making some Turkish delight this year. A gingerbread wreath, lemon posset with shortbread trees, and baileys cheesecake.

Why are you seemingly so irritated by something that doesn't effect you?

Most people can't afford to just replace it and feeling you have to 'hide food' (outside of say PP issue with a greedy dog lol) is really not a healthy attitude toward food. Most people should be able to have basic restraint.

Lots of food is DESIGNED to be on display, doesn't mean you can just help yourself. Its quite mannerless to take food thats not yours before its been opened/served.

Just the other day I was in somewhere that had big bowls of sweets on the counter with little notes to the kids with instruction to 'find the elves and collect a sweet'. Just because it was a big bowl on display in a public place that was sat staring at me doesn't mean I can just go up and start helping myself to them.

Every buffet party (kids birthdays, wakes, casual wedding receptions etc...) I have been to the food is laid out but you have to wait until the buffet is opened (usually half way through) before diving on it. Its basic etiquette.

It doesn’t appear it’s me who is irritated..

Ah ok, thanks, that wasn’t something we ever did. Although I guess we didn’t do the treats either, maybe why now I’m more a help yourself.

You posted twice to attack the OP for no reason with mean privilege statements and silly questions. yes I'm mildly irritated by ignorant and rude people but you seem blind to reality and irritated by poor people... its completely different.

'That's really miserable' yes, how dare she have a visual smorgasbord of treats so very, very miserable.

'I just replace it' well hooray for you being rich enough to have spare cash at Xmas.

'Why is that your decision?' maybe because its her house and her food.

'Is it financial?' well if it is then you MUST hide things. Poor people shouldn't be allowed to have nice things on display people might mistake you for not being a peasant.

'you can spend an extra ten or twenty quid on treats surely?' have you not just tried being rich and not having a budget, its 'only' £20 (random arbitrary amount you pulled out of nowhere).

Like on what planet did you consider your post wasn't:

A) simply rude
&
B) non of your business

To clarify: my Christmas selection is open now as DS is only 7 and therefore we can control his food intake. During the 80s, we didn't have treats with the regularity kids have them these days (working class family) plus there were three of us, so putting them out on, say, the 20th would guarantee they were all gone by the 24th due to the sheer excitement of having sweets readily available. My brother especially could not be trusted. He once ate 12 choc ices in the space of 24 hours...

I have accidentally eaten 3 chocolate oranges in the last 10 days. That's the last time I buy those in advance. I'm terrible for evening snacking and totally weak.

I was wondering when to start the fancy crisps ! We have tubs of mini cheddars etc and heroes and roses. If the chocs go out too soon they all get scoffed by dd11!!

I'm doing my Christmas shop today so I reckon it's treats all the way after today.

A few bits, including some lovely fudge, lindor balls, shortbread, florentines, the usual Roses etc, crisp galore and cheesies (little baked bits of cheese that I love).

We're all adults hereso the treat bar has been open already. Evweryone's free to pick at whatever they fancy. There'll still be plenty left when the guests get here (I hope!!).

Best post of the week op. Your treat corner sounds like mine still today. I put ours out 2 days ago, and it's open now🎉🌲.

This is mine , I need to refill the peach rings ! we hsve
jelly beans
straciatelli truffles
marshmallows
choc oranges
gold bears
jelly beans
mozart balls
marzipan bars
smarties
peach rings
Cookie dough bites
pistachiettes
percy the pigs

dd broke up on Friday abd went away fir the weekend with DH, the candy buffet was ready when they got back.

cos it's exciting and lovely and lots of us had it as a family tradition.
Please don't make snack tables bad- it's one of my fave bits!

I'm very proud as this year my snack table will only have homemade things on - (even the sweets)

My son's old bedroom (aka my office) has all the treats stashed away. They will be brought downstairs when I finish work on Friday.

From memory (I've been adding bits for a couple of months):
Pringles x 4 flavours
Matchmakers x 4 flavours
After Eights
Stollen bites and cake
Lebkuchen
Pretzels
Mixed nuts
Celebrations and Quality Street
Jacobs biscuits for cheese
Panettone
"Finest" mince pies

On the "don't dare touch that" shelf in the fridge, we have
Truckles of cheese x about 5 types
4 x other cheeses
Chutneys bought at a farmers market
2 packs of 4 types of dips for dunking Doritos into

No doubt there's that I've forgotten about

Looking at all that, it's little wonder that by the day after Boxing Day, I'm yearning for simple egg 'n' chips for dinner 😀

Nothing wrong with a bit of restraint and anticipation!

I haven't got a display, but I've been buying treaty things for a while and putting them by. Everyone here is able to understand waiting for nice things. I much prefer that to just eating them whenever and replacing them.

I've got posh crisps, some Lakrids liquorice, Quality Street, one of those Quality Street crackers with just coffee creams in (that is exclusively mine!), biscuit selection, cracker selection, and some posh Neuhaus chocolates. Going to hit Aldi today and see what delights they have.