Cadbury Christmas Puds - 35g

Cadbury does Christmas the way a British high street does: early, and with total commitment. The puds sit at the small, cheerful end of it, next to the selection boxes and the tins. They are the chocolate you hand out, not the chocolate you hide.

People in Canada go looking for them because a British Christmas is built from small things. The crackers, the pudding, the chocolate wedged in the toe of the stocking. Leave one out and the whole day feels slightly off, like a carol sung in the wrong key.

It is a small one, easy to slip into a stocking, a card envelope or the bottom of a lunchbox. Keep it somewhere cool, away from the radiator, and away from anyone who says they are only looking.

Most people put a few in the basket alongside a selection box and a proper Christmas pudding, the kind you set alight. Cadbury covers the rest of the sofa too: Dairy Milk, Buttons, Twirl and Wispa, all handed round once politely and then not politely at all.