Blogmas 2018 - Day 20: Christmas Chocolates

Now, this may be the most important blog post I have ever written. It may also be one of the most controversial blog posts I have ever written. But I’m going to take a deep breath, click the “publish” button, and I’m ready to accept the consequences. Today’s topic of conversation? The best Christmas chocolates!

I’m not really a fan of the traditional Christmas sweet foods like, mince pies, Christmas cake or Christmas pudding, so Christmas chocolates are my thing. First things first, tins of Christmas chocolates ettiquette. Wrappers must NOT go back in the tin. How annoying is it when you catch a glimpse of your favourite chocolate at the bottom of the tin, only to have a rummage and find it’s an empty wrapper? However, when it comes to the ettiquette around whether you can pick out your personal favourites first, or whether you should just eat the first chocolate you pick out, I personally think that it’s every man for himself - my husband very much disagrees. Maybe it’s coming from a household with 4 children, where if you didn’t choose what you wanted sharpish, you’d missed out.  

For me, the best tin of Christmas chocolates by far is Quality Street. I watched Inside the Christmas Factory on BBC2 the other day, as it featured the Quality Street factory which is actually in my hometown of Halifax (yes, where the bank is from), and my late Grandad worked there in the toffee section, so I wanted to have a good nosey at how everything works. It was pretty interesting, so I’d recommend giving it a watch.

My personal favourite Quality Street sweet is the Toffee Penny (just don’t check out what that means about me over on BuzzFeed!). It probably seems the most boring, being the only Quality Street with no chocolate, but I like them. My order of preference goes:

1) Toffee Penny

2) Chocolate Toffee Finger

3) Toffee Deluxe

4) Fudge

5) Green Triange

6) Orange Crunch

7) Milk Choc Block

8) Caramel Swirl

9) Orange Creme

10) Strawberry Delight

11)The Purple One

12) Coconut Eclair

When it comes to tubs of Celebrations and Miniature Heroes I’m not too bothered - although I’d probably choose Celebrations over Miniature Heroes, and I am partial to the Malteser ones. Of course I like and eat them both (they are chocolate after all) but I figure, if I fancied a Mars or Snickers or Wispa, I’d just buy a full size Mars, Snickers or Wispa, and I’d buy those all year round. Whereas Quality Street we tend only to have at Christmas. Told you it was a controversial blog! 

I can’t actually remember the last time I bought or ate any Cadbury Roses  I had to have a quick look on Wikipedia to see what the tin contains these days. Seems there’s still a lot of similar sweets to Quality Street - orange creme, strawberry creme, fudge, milk chocolate chunk - but the added bonus of having a coffee centred chocolate. Maybe I’ll have to pick some up this year after all. Yes, I like the coffee ones...and?

Think you know your Christmas chocolates? I’m not sure whether to be proud, or a little embarrassed to have got 20/21 in this quiz.