Whether you love or hate Christmas, it is hard to resist the festive food treats that come with it. Yule logs, selection boxes, big tubs of your favourite chocolates - there's a lot to enjoy.
Roses, Celebrations, Heroes and Quality Street tubs will feature in many people's Christmas celebrations, even if you grumble at how small they are now compared to years ago as you pick them up off the supermarket shelf. But with the cost of living crisis putting huge pressure on us all, shoppers will no doubt want to know exactly which tub they should choose to get the best value for money.
So if you love a green triangle, a golden barrel or a Galaxy caramel, we decided to head to the supermarkets so we could find out exactly which tub of chocolates you should buy if you really want value for money. And as LeicestershireLive's experiment found, there was a clear loser.
Tubs of Roses, Celebrations, Quality Street and Heroes were picked up at different supermarkets in Coalville this week so we could sit down with our scales to find out exactly which one had the most sweets inside. And there was a surprise or two along the way.
Before getting down to crunching the numbers, we had to pick up the tubs - which proved more difficult than expected. First up was Lidl, which was only selling Quality Street tubs, priced at £3.99.
We bagged this and went over the road to Aldi - who again hadn't got all four in stock. We spent £3.49 on Celebrations here - they also had the Quality Street too but not Heroes or Roses - so a final trip to Morrisons a junction down the bypass and we had all four, although Morrisons had the full range, all at a round £4 a tub.
To the untrained eye, they all look to be about the same size, but when weighed out the chocolates and their wrappers inside varied in weight. And the contents of one was clearly heavier than the rest.
Worst, weight wise, was Roses at 616g, followed by Quality Street at 619g and then Heroes bang on 620g. But Celebrations weighed in at a massive 701g including wrappers.
Unsurprisingly, Celebrations also had the most individual sweets inside too, 73 in total. Most frequent was the Malteser Teaser (11), followed by Mars and Snickers (both 10), Bounty, Twix and Milky Way (all 9), Galaxy Caramel (8) and the rarest was Galaxy (7).
Quality Street had 65 choccies stashed inside - ranging from the frequent Fudge (8) down to Milk Choc Blocks and Green Triangles (both 4) - while Heroes managed a decent 61 despite there being a real surprise inside.
Rather than placing the mini Twirls inside, we had instead been handed two full size bars instead. This is due to a supply chain issue, say Cadbury, but try explaining that when Auntie Doris causes a fight over the Monopoly by taking the big Twirl.
Roses were the last in chocolate count, totalling just 56. Golden Barrel was the most common (8) followed by Strawberry Cream and Dairy Milk (7), while rarest was the Signature Truffle which only had four to go around.
Results
Celebrations
Price per chocolate: Approximately 5p (cheapest)
Average weight of chocolate: Approximately 9.6g
Roses
Price per chocolate: Approximately 7p
Average weight of chocolate: 11g (heaviest)
Heroes
Price per chocolate: Approximately 7p
Average weight of chocolate: 10.2g
Quality Street
Price per chocolate: Approximately 10p (dearest)
Average weight of chocolate: 9.5g (lightest)
So if you're looking for the best bang for your buck this Christmas, Celebrations should be part of your celebrations. But the worst value on both counts is Quality Street.
