Christmas Eve Peanut Butter

In honor of Christmas Eve, I am reviewing the holy combination of peanut butter and chocolate. And my favorite holiday representative is Hershey's Reese's (which has been running some great full page ads in USA Today - saying things like "And visions of sugarplums danced in their heads. Sugar plums? Seriously?" surrounded by Reese's bells). YUM!!


Let's start with the trees:


This great box was filled with 6 of the standard size trees. Love the Christmas tree cutout on top. Great new packaging. Here's the standard size dressed for the season:



The mini trees were in these assortments:






The first one we covered earlier when I reviewed the York Peppermint Snowflake. The second one has white chocolate trees in addition to the milk chocolate ones.


I like that the white tree wrapper has such a different look - nice touch.


And then there's the Big Daddy:




Family portrait in their Christmas best:


The whole group naked:




Okay, the artistry isn't so good. But, honestly, who cares? They are sooooo damn good they can get away with it. Man, I love these!! The minis are the perfect size to just pop in your mouth. All that peanut butter - ooooh weee! But I do have to say that I prefer the milk chocolate to the white chocolate trees. The white chocolate is too sweet, doesn't offset the peanut butter as well. Pass on these.


Don't forget the Reese's Bells:







I can't believe I'm going to say this, but there's too much chocolate. I guess it has to be thicker to hold the nice bell shape. I'll take the blob tree instead. Don't get me wrong, these are good, but the trees are GREAT!!


Palmer has some entries:

Okay, Palmer has the artistry going on!! Look at all those different colors of foil wrapping! Even when unwrapped you have different colored bows on the presents. Fancy!

However, these are not so good. Too much chocolate, too little peanut butter, and the chocolate isn't that good. Bells are better. But outstanding artistry.

There are also Palmer peanut butter Santas:

Okay the naked Santa seems to have lost his glasses and his list, and he looks pretty shocked that I'm shooting him in the nude, but he's pretty detailed. Good for Palmer! Should we cut up Claus? Is autopsying Santa on Christmas Eve appropriate?

Of course not! Let's do it!!

These guys are better than the presents - more peanut butter. Better than the trees? HA! Not possible. But strangely likeable. I can't stop eating them. I scare myself.

Speaking of peanut butter and Santa, check this out:

I love peanut butter. I love Snickers. I thought this would be great. (And isn't he the cutest Santa evah?) But cute won't fool me - he wasn't that good. Look how thin that layer of peanut butter is - I mean, why bother?

Even Palmer has more PB:

Now this guy brings it:

If you like Snickers, go with the nutcracker. Love the detail (loved it in their Santa too) and this guy is delish - loaded with peanuts and caramel and a thin layer of chocolate - YUM!! No peanut butter, but that's okay. Everybody can't be a Reese's tree. Variety is the spice of Christmas. Or maybe that's cinnamon. Who the hell knows?

Wait, let's ask Martha!

Martha says "Many spices work at the holidays - cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger. Wrap spice bottles in old maps for a lovely Christmas gift."

And here's something Martha would never do:

Decapitate Santa.

It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it.

Hope your Christmas is fun and just a little bit crazy.

Make sure you:
1.) Do something no one expects.
2.) Laugh - a lot.
3.) Look at some lights.
4.) Burn all your old maps.
and finally
5.) Eat some chocolate - life is short - live it!!!

Russell Stover's Last Stand

I was sorely disappointed by Russell Stover's Halloween chocolate. But I am willing to give them one more chance. Having unwrapped their offerings, my hopes are not high.

Let's talk Santa.

These are Nestle's Santas:





They are coaster sized disks with a cute Santa face and each says Santa Claus is Comin' to Town! The Butterfinger disk is awesome! I love Butterfingers, so that was not surprising. The Crunch is okay. To me all Crunch is only okay. Bland, waxy chocolate - pass. It's the peanut butter that saves the Butterfinger Santa and the chocolate seems better than that in the Crunch. But I could just be deluded by the peanut butter.

Now look at this:




Do you see those blobs? Those are "Santas" according to Russell Stover. Maybe mummies. Maybe potatoes. One looks like the Pope. They ain't Santas. I put in Snickers Nutcracker to make it even more clear how lame the RS Santas are.

I mean, come on! Did they even try? You can see the buttons on the Nutcracker's jacket! I can barely make out "Santa's" head! BOO on aesthetics. Coal and switches, RS.

But let's talk taste. RS's caramel Santa was not too bad. Nothing extraordinary, but not bad. I still don't like the way their chocolate just crumbles. Not melts - cracks, crumbles. Snickers' Nutcracker is better - you've got caramel and peanuts and I like the chocolate better.

The coconut cream Santa is okay if you REALLY like coconut cream - it's sweet, with coconut chunks but not creamy. It has the consistency of marshmallow. I found it gross. The coconut Santa (not cream, just coconut) is an inferior version of an Almond Joy with no almond. (And not much joy.)

There's also a coconut wreath (apparently RS goes all out with coconut at Christmas. I don't think of coconut as a Christmas treat, but hey, why not?) Better than VEGETABLES.

Again, aesthetics not so good. I'm not going to elaborate - you can see for yourself. BUT - this was my favorite of the RS treats! I'm surprised! I like it! Hey, Mikey! RS may not be dead to me yet! I would actually buy this again. It's not a chocolate coated thing like the others, the chocolate is mixed with the coconut and it's nice and moist. YUM! No switches!!

Remember Russell Stover's infamous Buzzard Egg at Halloween? The one I busted for being an Easter Egg repackaged and repackaged badly? Well, it's BAAAACK!

And the competition is none other than the Cadbury Ornament Creme Egg! (Hey -at least they tied it to Christmas and called it an ornament - RS just said "Marshmallow and Caramel" and stuck a Santa picture on the label.

Here they are naked - at least Cadbury tried to make theirs look seasonal:

Russell Stover is just sticking with the Easter decoration year round. RS is lazy in the aesthetics department. More coal and switches. Santa is SO watching! (And he's not laughing at the Pope thing.)

Let's look inside these babies, where the yolk meets the egg!

Now, there really is no competiton here. The first picture is RS - there is a big hole where caramel should be. And look at that spongy marshmallow! Something is just not working here - I don't know what happens to the caramel. There's some weird liquid between the marshmallow and the chocolate so maybe it's caramel. I don't know. I didn't like it as a buzzard egg and I don't like it as a weird Santa egg.

The Cadbury egg is much better - it actually looks like an egg, it's creamy and delicious. Although I have to confess that it is a little too sweet for me. But it blows RS out of the nest.

So here are my favs - the Butterfinger Santa disk, the Snickers Nutcracker, and the RS Wreath. I higly recommend them all - they are relatively inexpensive and taste pretty darn good.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Ho, ho, ho!!!