What is your favourite Christmas luxury or special festive spend?

[Christmas2026]

I know... I know ... It's June.

I'm just feeling nosy and wondering what your most luxurious/ treat/traditional (whatever) spend is at Christmas?

Truthfully, I don't really have one! But my life is different now. Previously, we were child free and basically working most of it so our most luxe spend was probably some nice chocolates also I only have a small list of people to buy for so I like to not necessarily spend a lot of money but put a lot of consideration and thought into gifts I have a little text conversation with myself where I note when people mention flavours they like etc.

Just interested in other people's Christmases?

Its not that I'm luxurious at Christmas -I'm actually quite dull. But I really like a lot of the stuff at Lidl! The mini stollen with marcipan, panetoni, lebkuchen with chocolate. And Danish vanilla cookies. And mincepies.

Ours has to be Lapland UK tickets. we spent £440 for a family of 3. We go on Christmas Eve and imo its worth the money. It's the most magical experience and really makes our Christmas feel special.

Just to add I do also like to but some after eights!

Elvas plums
Marrons glacés
Maple Brazils
Orangettes

Salivating now!

A fuck ton of cheese from the fancy cheese shop. Not to be shared with visitors. Only eaten when it’s just me and my husband. I order that before the turkey. I do get fancy cheese throughout the year but I order an epic amount for Christmas. There are other treats but that’s the favourite.

I buy a very expensive, organic , preservative free ham. It’s a whole leg and shoulder and I have been buying it for over 20 years. (A lot of preservatives give me trouble.

I slice and saw it up into chunks, keep the good looking hock end for Christmas, wrap in foil and freeze so we enjoy it on occasions throughout the year.

I always do an M&S shop - one at the beginning of the month to get some festive treats for the build up and one just before Christmas for picky bits which we have Xmas Eve with a film.

Last year I ordered a Yule Log cake from a local bakery and really liked it so plan to do that again this year 😊

Luxury chocolate log

I buy a nice beauty advent calendar, around £100. My daughter and I take it in turns. I also buy my other daughter who doesn’t live with us an M&S advent for her Birthday in late Oct. We open, and then at Xmas we swap between us anything we don’t want. Only been doing it for 3-4 years, but will carry on.

M&S pork and chestnut stuffing, every year. Expensive, but delicious. I leave some to go cold to have on the turkey butties.

Oh mine is the M&S food to order, I love getting the catalogue every year and buying some luxurious items (maybe common place for other people but is very extravagant for me!) last year I bought the £50 pork pie and the £100 beef joint amongst other things and for a couple of days it gives me a feeling of how the other half live 😅 I can’t wait for it this year as both my children will be old enough to enjoy it all as well!

I wish I hadn’t read your comment, I have a feeling my Christmas M&S order is now going to be shooting up this year 😂

Love this thread OP!

Another for m&s treats. Before Xmas for bits to nibble on throughout dec and then again right before Xmas.

We also go out for Xmas lunch each year which is £££ but we really enjoy it and go somewhere child friendly.

Oooo I dont know you know

Maybe chocolate - and good quality meat and veg

Two weeks and it'll be 6 months til Christmas!! 🎄

I have two Christmas treats

1. The Bonne Maman advent calendar. Little pots of jam, a new one every day, in a flavour I won't be able to get elsewhere.
2. Pfeffernusse. Little iced gingerbread biscuits that are perfect to accompany a cup of coffee. They're only in the shops (OK, Waitrose) in the runup to Christmas. We go through about one bag per week when we have them, and I have been known to clear the shelf when I go to buy them - I think the most I've bought in one go was 20 bags . I am shameless about this.

Various things.

We have Ocado and last year we got M and S chateubriand for 4 and a very nice boneless duck, so we dined in style on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Both of these, however, were massively reduced with Ocado offers ( on their coupons). It all went down very well with the family.

Over covid times, we got a bargainous, massive, free range Packington chicken, which kept us well fed with lots of left overs.

I often cook a chicken and a duck on Christmas Day, so we have lots of useful leftovers.

We also one time had a load of very up market shellfish over Christmas that came on flash sale from Ocado.

All these things had decent dates and could be planned into the delivery, very convenient.

Other things I like at Christmas are panettone (ones from the German supermarkets are fine, but have to be fruit and not chocolate or any other inappropriate innovation). Also cherries in kirsch, yum.

I find German gingerbread biscuits are a bit sweet for me, but they are very Christmassy, and unsurprisingly Aldi and Lidl are a good source if you like that kind of thing

Filled Lebkuchen!

A Jo Loves advent calendar. Hugely expensive but I love it . M & S food aswell .

Goose- we love roast goose for our Christmas lunch. I do love the special Christmas biscuits and cakes from Lidl as well - particularly the stollen

I had the Bonne Maman advent calendar last year for the first time but was disappointed at how many variations on Nutella there were as well as the jam, I have just thrown out the last few as no one here wanted them after the first taste. The jams were fabulous though.

It tends to be different things different years, but last year I bought the luxury fresh cream M&S yule log which was fabulous.

Head off for some sunshine for at least a week to defrost

I’m a Christmas fanatic so loving this! I have a free range Turkey, a huge piece of grass fed beef and a huge free range ham which I boil, glaze and bake. If any of the Fortnums hampers look good we have one but it does depend as some times there is a lot of stuff that we wouldn’t use or wouldn’t be able to gift. Hawkstone beer advent calendar and a gin advent calendar, side of smoked salmon, lots of picky bits. It’s endless. I save all year and make sure nothing goes to waste and have a pretty much open house for two weeks so make sure we are well stocked.

The Fortnum and Mason Welsh rarebit spread which they do in gorgeous little china pots, it was the perfect Christmas morning treat and use the pot to keep my reusable makeup remover pads in. A whole French mountain ham leg that we got on a trip to France in December kept us going all through the festive period and was lovely. Just left the knife next to it and kept carving bits off it when I passed.

Expensive candles.