The Awards For Best/Worst Christmas Desserts And Drinks
Writer’s note: I wrote this blog last year, but it disappeared with countless other blogs after the DevNest’s redesign. So I am reposting it here partially to get it published again and partially because it’s Christmas Eve and I still haven’t watched Christmas Vacation or Home Alone. Believe it or not, the full-time blog life is time consuming.
Unlike the annual Thanksgiving turkey, Christmas dinners vary from family to family. Some people go with a traditional ham, turkey, or pasta, while others will do an extreme seven-course meal that could end hunger in Africa. However, the desserts and drinks of Christmas are pretty much etched in stone. So with less than a week until we gorge ourselves with an ungodly amount of food in the name of Jesus Christ, here are my awards for the best and worst Christmas desserts and drinks.
Best Holiday Themed Candy EVER: Candy Canes
The originator, none greater. Candy canes are the classiest holiday food in the world. They are sophisticated enough to hang on your Christmas tree, but still are an A+ in the flavor department. And just like a Reeses, there is no wrong way to eat a candy cane.
Once you are done devouring these Christmas miracles, you don’t have to brush your teeth for the rest of the day. That’s an old Christmas trick. The fatal flaw of these classics however is the packaging. You have to either break the cane and get candy shrapnel everywhere or gnaw at it like some New York City rat. But other than that, they are the perfect holiday candy.
Worst Bastardization Of A Holiday Tradition: Mini Candy Canes
Is it possible to love regular sized candy canes and hate small candy canes at the same time? You bet your sweet ass it is. Mini candy canes are tacky as fuck. If someone ever gives you a mini candy cane, it means that they gave all their regular sized candy canes to their real friends and secretly hope you die a painful death.
Worst Idea For A Candy: Sugar Plums
We have all read ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas and wondered what the fuck a sugar plum was. Well according to Wikipedia, they are a candy made of dried fruit (usually figs, prunes, or apricots). Do I really need to go on? No normal person eats any of those fruits unless the Hershey highway is backed up.
Best Commercial: Hershey Kisses
Hershey Kisses are a Hall of Fame candy, everybody knows that. However, the best thing they bring to the holiday season is the commercial below. You know it is almost Christmas the first time you see this commercial, which gives me butterflies in my stomach every time it is played.
Best Mint And Chocolate Cookie Combo: Candy Cane Milano Cookies
I never had Candy Cane Milanos until this week and they were off the charts good. This is how you combine chocolate and mint. Candy Cane Milanos come right into Thin Mints kitchen, punch him in the mouth, and make sweet love to his wife as he watches in a concussed state. Was this award given out just so I could shit on Thin Mints again? Yes. Yes it was.
Best Poor Person’s Food: Little Debbie’s Christmas Tree Cakes
I admit that Little Debbie’s is a poor person food because every snack they make maxes out at like $1.50 per box. But their Christmas Tree Cakes are the bees knees. Little Debbie’s sells basically the same cakes without the tree shape/colors during the year, but they are roughly 9000 times worse than the Christmas Tree Cakes. I don’t know what type of Christmas magic or FDA-approved drugs Little Debbie’s uses to make these Christmas Tree Cakes so magical, but it works.
Best Hybrid Snack Dessert: Caramel Popcorn From The Three Flavor Popcorn Bin
Is caramel corn a dessert or a snack is the original “chicken or the egg?” question. I think it is a hybrid. Before kettle corn blew up in the food game, caramel corn was a snack without any peers, similar to Babe Ruth’s stats in the 20s. Don’t get me wrong, caramel corn is still the king. But it has a ton of competition now.
Also, if we are ranking the flavors in the traditional popcorn tin, it has to be:
1. Caramel popcorn: Easily the best flavor in the container. And as you can see in the picture above, it usually takes up the most real estate in the tin. If you get a tin that isn’t loaded with caramel corn, you got played.
2. Cheddar popcorn: Cheese popcorn comes in a close 2nd, but something about the cheese makes the popcorn go stale very quick.
3. Butter popcorn: This has absolutely nothing to do with butter popcorn being plain. Butter popcorn is tremendous. But these popcorn companies focus so hard on pulling off the caramel and cheese flavors, they completely short the quality of the butter popcorn in these tins. And it is a God damn tragedy.
Bushiest Beaver Award: Phyllis
Oops, wrong awards.
Worst Christmas Flavor Being Pushed On Us: Gingerbread
Gingerbread is basically a graham cracker with a terrible aftertaste. Gingerbread houses are great in theory, but who wants to eat stale candy and icing along with shitty ass gingerbread? And have you actually ever seen a good gingerbread house other than Big Cat’s? Little kids just waste a ton of perfectly good icing and candy with poor architecture and an utter lack of imagination. And now candy companies like Twix, M&Ms, and Peeps are coming out with special gingerbread flavored candy. Gingerbread is to winter as pumpkin spice is to fall. Which means it sucks and is overrated.
Worst Traditional Food Ever: Fruit Cake
Take a long look at that picture. Cake is supposed to remind you of happiness and sweetness, not your shit after eating a bunch of corn. And have you ever had fruit cake? It tastes like a God damn nightmare. Fruit cake for dessert is reason 482,502,481 why it sucked being alive before the 1980s (which is when I feel fruit cake ruled the Christmas dessert table).
Best Holiday Drink (And Best Drink Of All-Time): Santa Coke
Simply put, any bottle of Coca Cola that has Santa’s face on it is the best drink in the world. Until proven otherwise, I am going to believe that the good people at Coca Cola load up every bottle of Santa Coke with extra sugar to celebrate the holiday season. God Bless those diabetes slingin’ geniuses.
Best Drink (Little Kid’s Division): Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider
Nothing, and I mean nothing made you feel more like a grown up despite sitting at the kid’s table more than Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider. That bottle and label is fancier than 90% of the champagnes of the world. Was it a little depressing when your recovering alcoholic uncle had to partake in the cider drinking? Sure. But being allowed to drink this magical beverage out of fancy champagne glasses made it all worth it.
Worst Holiday Drink: Egg Nog
This is what I have to say about this tradition: Egg nog sucks. If you like egg nog, you are just a flat out weirdo. Who says “Man I’m thirsty. I want to drink something that tastes like eggs and looks like jizz”. No fucking thanks.
And don’t give me the whole “you can get wasted off of egg nog” excuse. You know what else you can get wasted off of? Any other liquid on the planet if you add liquor to it. The only place I want to see eggs during Christmas is on toast slathered with bacon and cheese at the breakfast table.
Best Christmas Cookies: Peanut Butter Kisses Cookie
Tollhouse cookies, pizelles, rugelach, and all the other types of Christmas cookies are playing for 2nd place when it comes to Christmas cookies. The saltiness of the peanut butter and the sweetness of the chocolate are the most lethal combo since Charles Barkley and Thunder Dan Majerle in NBA Jam.
Worst Christmas Cookies: Italian Sesame Seed Cookies
Sesame seed Italian bread is probably the best bread in the world. But when you shrink the bread down to the size of a cookie, add a pinch of sugar, and try to call it a cookie, you have then created the shittiest cookie ever. Italians are the kings of great food, but this cookie was a cocky idea that just went way too far.
Best Cookies Ever: White Fudge Oreos
No joke, these are the best cookies ever created. Other than Christmas presents and the unwritten rule allowing you to play “All I Want For Christmas Is You” for 25 days straight, White Fudge Oreos are the best part of the holiday season.