Let’s start with the once-a-year treat of turkey for Christmas dinner and turkey sandwiches for a week afterwards. Then there was watching the big film on Christmas Day, only ever seen at the cinema before. And once a year, the Radio Times double issue would be bought, and planning for Christmas viewing would begin.
Then there was something that every kid expected — at least one chocolate selection box that would never make it past Boxing Day.
In many homes, it didn’t even survive Christmas afternoon.
Selection boxes were bright, shiny, and exciting. For adults, they were an easy gift. For children, they were a chocolate-filled treasure.
And for most of us, they were gone within hours.
Although, I have to say, the selection boxes did seem to be a lot bigger back then. Maybe being a child had something to do with that — after all, everything looks bigger when you are a kid.
But shrinkflation hadn’t been thought of yet.
The boxes were big and were full of the chocolates everyone loved. A Mars bar, Aero, Kit-Kat, the Crunchie, the Flake, a packet of Buttons, a tube of Smarties and Rolos, to name a few. You would get ten or twelve to a box, and they were all full size — none of this miniature-size, two-bites-and-they-are-gone nonsense.
You can only imagine the sugar high.
I was always convinced that I could pace myself. Every year I’d unwrap the selection boxes and list them from favourites to potential swaps. Inside, the sweets were laid out like jewels: the Flake you could never eat neatly, the Caramel bar that stuck your teeth together, and I was always disappointed if I got a Bounty, because they were difficult to trade. Adults seemed to like them, but they had nothing to swap.
And then there were the negotiations — somehow, I had to offload that Bounty.
“I’ll swap you my Fudge for your Mars Bar.” A reasonable offer, I thought.
“No deal.” Said my cousin, on his once-a-year visit.
“What about the Milkybar?” I felt that was a generous offer — I liked Milky Bars.
“No. It’s not enough.” Blunt and to the point.
“What about a Milky Bar and a Bounty?” I upped the stakes.
“For a Mars Bar? You must be joking!” Damn that Bounty bar.
It was like the floor of the stock exchange.
As for pacing myself, well, it's no good aiming for one bar a day. Maybe two at a push. I’d make it last. I genuinely believed this — for about five minutes. Hope springs eternal, but the moment the box was open, the plan fell apart.
Looking back, my downfall was simple: I blame Christmas television. I might be allowed one before Christmas dinner, but after the Queen’s Speech and the big film, I was getting closer to that Bounty. By the time Morecambe and Wise came on in the evening, I was thanking my lucky stars that I had more than one box.
Parents always pretended to be shocked when they discovered the empty box so soon. “All gone? Already?” they’d say. Of course, what did they expect? If you give the keys of a bank to a bank robber, don’t be surprised if the bank vault is empty the next time you need money.
Then there were the adult warnings.
“Take your time; they will make you sick.”
“If you eat any more, you won’t get any cake later.”
“They’ll rot your teeth. You don’t want to go to the dentist, do you?”
These warnings were relevant but barely acknowledged. Christmas was a time for chocolate-based rebellion. By the end of Boxing Day, supplies were getting low, but I still had that Bounty. One possibility was to cut the chocolate off the bar — surely that would work? Standards go out of the window when you’re ten and it’s the Christmas selection box.
By the time New Year rolled around, the selection box — all of them — was long gone. The sugar rush had worn off, and life returned to normality. It was back to school. Back to counting my pocket money to see what it would buy at the school tuck shop.
Today, selection boxes are still around, of course. Many of them are smaller or have a lot of packaging. There are bigger ones, but they are not cheap. Long gone are the days when the selection box was a cheap and cheerful Christmas offering.
Then there is the modern temptation of the tub of chocolates. We had them, but they were mainly for the adults, and the tins were massive. Yes, they were real tins, not these half-sized plastic efforts that fill the supermarkets today from October onwards.
There’s no chance they last until Christmas Day.
But that’s the problem with chocolate. Once you buy them, they are not designed to sit around for long. Temptation is there, usually followed by those famous last words.
“I’ll only have one.”
As for the Bounty bar, they never traded well; one year I had three of them.
A mate at school gave me some advice.
“Why don’t you cut the chocolate off? That’s what I did…”
Image by Alexa from Pixabay
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