Nestlé Milkybar Advent Calendar - 85g

Milkybar has its own corner of British sweets. It is the white chocolate one, the bar small children pick first at the checkout and grown-ups claim to have outgrown, right up until someone offers them one.

Advent calendars are easy enough to find at Christmas in Canada. The Milkybar one, the same calendar from the supermarket back home, is the one people go looking for, often for a small person who has heard all about it from a British grandparent and will accept no substitute.

At 85g it is a light calendar, slim enough for a mantelpiece and easy to post to someone who misses home. Keep it somewhere cool and dry, well away from the radiator, because white chocolate and central heating have never got on. Start on the first of December, or sooner, depending on willpower.

Nestlé fills a fair bit of the British Christmas cupboard: Quality Street for the tin that goes round after dinner, plus Kit Kat, Aero and Smarties for the stocking. A Milkybar calendar and a tin of Quality Street between them cover both ends of the sofa.