As we all get older, Christmas becomes less about the presents and more about the copious amounts of food and drink we all consume.
Time spent with family around the dinner table eating a meal, or around the TV snacking on cheese and crackers, are the low-key gems of Christmas time.
Perhaps less low-key however, is the grandiose and often over-the-top Christmas dinner, which involves so many trimmings and extras not present in the regular Sunday roast.
It’s arguably the best meal of the year and if you don’t put on at least a stone by the end of the meal you’ve done it wrong…
Yet just which part of the meal is the best? The turkey obviously is front-and-centre for the meal, but it’s the accompaniments which really elevate the feast.
Do the sauces steal the show for you? Do you stuff your face with stuffing? How generous are you with the gravy?
We all have our favourites, but only one culinary Christmas delight can win…And the award goes to…
Pigs in blankets! Obviously.
In a survey conducted by musclefood, the humble sausage wrapped in bacon, came out well on top, with over 40 per cent of the votes.
The piggie delights came in with a full 23 percentage point gap ahead of any of the competition, with the second place going to the turkey centrepiece with a measly 17 per cent.
It’s all downhill from there really, roast potatoes and Christmas stuffing take a tied third position at 14 per, while Yorkshire Puddings come in at 7 per cent, which is a bit low but we’ll let it slide.
We can’t argue too much with the results at this point, but this is where it starts getting seriously questionable.
The festive sauces only racked up a tiny 1 per cent, despite cranberry sauce being THE thing which takes the meal from souped-up Sunday roast to an official Christmas dinner.
As a sprout advocate of many years, it pains me to see the humble mini-cabbage coming in with only 3 per cent of the overall vote.
Seriously, a sprout done right is a special thing: shred it nice and thin and fry it with some smoked bacon and mix with some chopped walnuts – who wouldn’t want that?!
Here’s where we get seriously sacrilegious, with the obligatory cheeseboard – only 1 per cent of the vote. Hang your heads in shame.
The cheeseboard is a showstopper and there should be so many cheeses you can’t even try and arrange them to look all pretty, but you just have to stack them all on to avoid making two trips to the kitchen to get them all.
Nobody’s saying the cheeseboard needs to be completed in one go – oh no! The cheeseboard sticks around for days after the Christmas meal, providing little salty morsels of indulgence whenever you head into the kitchen to remind you of the memories you just made.
To be honest, if it weren’t for the pigs in blanket victory, the legitimacy of this survey would be thrown into question entirely – but thankfully the vote threw up the right answer.
