Nestlé Smarties Penguin 3 Designs - 94g

Smarties are one of the best-known sweets in Britain, and every December the shops fill up with chocolate shapes to go with them. The penguin sits in that happy middle ground between the selection box and the chocolate coins: too good to hang on the tree, too small to share honestly.

Smarties turn up in Canada too, so people looking for this one tend to know exactly what they are after. The penguin. The UK Christmas one. The one that was in the stocking every year until they moved across the Atlantic.

Each pack holds one 94g penguin, and it comes in three designs, so which one you get is the luck of the draw. Keep it somewhere cool and dry, well away from the radiator and the fireplace, because a penguin in a warm room does not stay a penguin for long. It slips into a stocking, a Secret Santa bag or a parcel for someone far from home.

Nestlé makes a fair chunk of the British Christmas chocolate aisle. The penguin tends to travel with a tin of Quality Street, a Milkybar for the youngest and a KitKat for whoever is doing the washing up.