Treat bits - when do you put yours ‘out’?

[BarnabyJude]

My late teen kids joke that the Christmas stash (as they refer to it) is out of bounds til a certain date (usually 23rd ish Dec). I’m just curious as to when you have your treaty bits out for general consumption?

Was always not before Christmas Eve.
Until 2020 when I literally went feck it.
Now youngest cries "covid rules" anytime from the 1st December and we crack open the Heroes.

Erm

Well

Put it this way, the truffles are half eaten already, the mini yule logs made it to about 2pm, we bought them at lunch time. Fancy nuts from Tesco were finished last week.

I try to be Tudor about it and do an advent of deprivation followed by a more indulgent 12 days. So Xmas Eve, but I never manage it.

What a wonderful thread! It's lovely hearing what different people do and what different Christmassy goodies everyone has.

This is a genuine question (not trying to be the miserable one - I love Christmas!) .... are most of you a 'healthy' weight and will you stay a healthy-ish weight over Christmas?

I've really struggled this year (since turning 40) with maintaining a healthy weight. I'm petite, healthy weight/BMI but it's hard work. Being short/petite means I seem to gain weight so easily and take weeks to lose just one pound. I eat healthily but I am feeling genuinely worried about not gaining weight over Christmas. (I've never had this worry before but my body just seems to have decided this year that I can't eat much.)

I love Christmas and don't what to be obsessed with thinking I can't eat a mince pie when everyone else is having one!

Whats a curd cupboard?

I want one anyway. Is it like a cheese board?

The tubs I will allow from about the middle of December. Everything else a few days before Christmas.

Oh it sounds glorious!!

Not until Christmas Eve

The build up in anticipation is all part of it

Referring to the curd cupboard earlier (!) on in the thread, I got recommended mercers a few years ago on MN and I highly recommend them:

https://www.mercersfoods.com

Same here, although we watch the TV version later on with a glass of fizz.

I don’t really put much out before that. Maybe some quality street and I usually have mince pies from sometime in December. It depends. I don’t really have a rule!

This is definitely a reason I don’t generally start festive eating earlier than Christmas Eve. Aside from the odd mince pie or chocolate.

I discovered mini mince pies last week…

I'm sitting here staring at my house, trying to work out where I could set up a Shrine To Gluttony.....sadly I don't think I have room.

DH is already 3 boxes of mince pies and a tub of heroes into xmas treats.

I usually start putting out chocolate and bits around 1st Dec. But to be fair, most of us don't like "traditional" Christmas foods like stollen etc. All that spice flavoured dried fruit 🤢 so there isn't a huge amount to go out anyway.

After the King's Speech I lovingly present each family member with a single Quality St. We try to make it last until Boxing Day, then it's back to big salads.

We’ve already started - the Chens have a long, gradual run up to Christmas.

Just advent calendars for the kids from 1 December and nothing really (maybe the occasional treat will come from visitors) till Christmas Eve when we do some sort of baking. The chocolates etc come out on Christmas Day till they run out a couple of days later.

Our tree goes up beginning of December but same here. I don’t buy and stash just buy things in my shopping. We have a Santa sleigh that gets filled with sweets and adult dc top up as well when running low.
Christmas in our house is the season so treats, movies events through December.

I actually don’t buy much in the way of Christmas crap, we bake more than normal, sausage rolls mainly but those tubs of chocolates all taste crap now, the packaging is atrocious and if we want chocolate we just buy and eat as and when.
I’m not a grinch, promise! We usually have a night of party food, I just don’t see the point in storing food for weeks and not being ‘allowed’ to eat it until Christmas Eve or whenever.
Hate after eights, ferrero rocher, even terrys chocolate oranges seem to taste too
waxy to enjoy now. Twiglets have long lost their flavour. We have a feast on Christmas Day, leftovers on Boxing Day and then go on holiday the week after so don’t have any days of just doing nothing but eating at home. When we get back from holiday (which is always indulgent) we are back on to normal food again.

We've started 😂 tbh I use to wait until Christmas eve but it was a waste because after eating a few things we were stuffed so I put out things each day from now, a tub of chocolates, nice biscuits with a coffee, nice cakes, so much lovely things out there that we really get to eat and enjoy it now when sitting here in the evening.

I always opened everything Christmas Eve, but since the Christmas a couple of years ago where all 4 of us got struck down with covid and lost our sense of taste for the whole of Christmas, I now don’t wait. We opened a tin of sweets today and from the 1st December we will start really eating the Christmas bits.

Christmas is a time of year, anytime from Dec 1 onwards is good. What’s the point waiting till Xmas eve when you’re gna be stuffed over the next few days anyway. Plus lots of nice things to enjoy, chocs, mince pies, stollen, Xmas biscuits, pannetone, leibkuchen, panforte, honey roasted nuts. We also start the puddings from about 21st Dec including trifle, sticky toffee etc.

Love the Shrine to Gluttony, we definitely need a thread.

I haven't had a sideboard for a few years so had stopped but will be reviving this year. Otherwise we tend forget to get things out and have been known to rediscover the tub of sweets mid Jan unopened which is no fun at all.

Normally we start with mince pies from 1st Dec, everything else is fair game when school finishes. I might even make a Christmas cake now I have a sideboard to display one on 😍

Oh I like that idea. Although I wouldn't be able to purchase Pringles until Christmas eve because I have no willpower there.

Shrine to Gluttony is amazing 😀😀😀
Christmas in our house starts officially with the Crib Service on Xmas eve, usually with a drink at the pub afterwards, so it's open season on treats when we get back from that. Although this year I think my youngest is probably going to veto it as she is now a grumpy teen so it may be Carols from Kings on the radio instead.

I live alone and everyone comes round on Christmas Eve to start the Christmas festivities, so that's when everything is opened.*

*this is what I tell them. In reality I've been necking the posh biscuits and the Quality Street like nobody's business for at least a week by then.

Your friend sounds like my mother, I love her dearly but anything over a slice of Christmas cake and a few dates is greedy.