It's Christmas Eve, and the only seasonal goodie that I've written about so far has been Gingerbread Toast Crunch and Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cakes. This is the last opportunity I'm going to have to squeeze in some of the more interesting holiday themed snacks that we've tried this year, so here goes.
One of the other Little Debbie snacks that we picked up were their Mini Christmas Tree Cake Donuts. They're pretty much just vanilla donuts with the same coating as the brand's Christmas Tree cakes. The combination is very tasty, especially with a cup of coffee.
One of my favorite holiday snacks that we had this year was a gift from my dad. When my grandfather was alive, dad used to give Harry & David Royal Rivera Pears to him as an early Christmas present every year. This year, he ordered a box of them for us.
I remember enjoying these when my grandfather sharing them with me when I was a kid, but I didn't remember that they were this good! When they ripen, they become soft and juicy and one of the best tasting pieces of fruit that I've ever eaten.
One of my favorite types of cookies to eat are shortbread, but I usually only get them around the holiday season. I especially like the tins of Royal Dansk butter cookies, Stauffer's holiday shortbread cookies, and Walker's mini shortbread cookies.
I've always loved the vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry wafer sandwiches that you can find at pretty much every grocery store in the country. Voortman produced two limited edition Candy Cane and Eggnog flavored wafers this year that I've never seen before this year. The Candy Cane ones are very good, but the Eggnog Wafers are freaking incredible! If you own a restaurant that serves eggnog and want to kick up the presentation, serve it in a cup with a saucer with one or two of these wafers.
One of the more interesting seasonal snacks we found were Toasty Holiday Peanut M&M's. They've got an interesting smoky and sweet flavor that blends chocolate, roasted peanuts, cinnamon, vanilla, spiced sugar, and caramel. My wife didn't care for them much and said the flavor reminded her of cinnamon and Worcestershite Sauce, but I thought they were really good.
Another limited edition seasonal candy that we got to try were Sugar Cookie Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.
They're just regular Reese's Peanut Butter Cups that are stuffed with little bits of sugar cookie mixed in with the peanut butter. They give the cups a crunchy texture, but the only difference I could tell in the flavor is that they're more sweet than a regular cup. It didn't really remind me of the taste of a sugar cookie.
I can't let a holiday season go by without picking up a bag of Hershey Miniatures. When I was a kid, my favorite ones were the Hershey Special Dark bars, but these days my favorite is Mr. Goodbar. I'm not sure if this is true, but I remember reading that this is the only way to purchase a Hershey Krackel Bar in 2024. It hadn't occurred to me that this was the case, but I think the article may be correct. I can't remember the last time that I saw a full size Krackel Bar, or even a fun size one in an assortment bag.
This International Delight Peppermint Mocha Iced Coffee grabbed my attention solely on its Home Alone inspired packaging. The part that really sold me was the Wet Bandits looking in the window.
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| Crowbars up! |
I'm not generally a big fan of sweet coffee, but this was pretty tasty and definitely worth picking up as a holiday treat.
Winter Spiced Cranberry Sprite was something that I was looking forward to trying ever since it was first announced, but I wasn't overly impressed with it. It's not terrible, but it didn't taste too much like cranberry to me. It just tasted like Sprite with some weird spice flavor mixed in.
I think that Starry Cranberry Blizz tastes a lot better than Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry, but it's not my favorite Christmas seasonal soda that was available this year.
My favorite for the second holiday season in a row is Canada Dry Zero Sugar Cranberry Ginger Ale. If getting excited about ginger ale is a sign of being middle-aged, I suppose I'm guilty as charged. I don't really have strong opinions about ginger ale one way or the other, but it makes a good base to bring out the cranberry flavor.
And that's a wrap on Christmas snacks in 2024.
