With only 2 weeks to go until the 2017 Advent Calendar, I thought it would be nice to share about some of our Christmas preparations. With all of the shops helping us get ready, today was the first of the big trips to buy Christmas food . Here are our annual must-haves: 1) Mince pies Must be topped with icing, and not those mini ones either. I suppose puff pastry all over is OK, and those frangipane ones are nice too, but iced topped mince pies are the Christmas equivalent of cherry bakewells. 2) Zum Fest You have to get in a decent box of biscuits, and you can't do better than Bahlsen ones from Germany. Zum Fest have chocolates, biscuits, and lebkuchen. Second best are the lebkuchen from Sainsburys, as they have lovely apricot filling (the same jam that holds a decent battenburg together). Plain gingerbread is not as good. 3) Treeslets The best cheesy biscuits. They are like Cheeselets but in the shape of trees. 4) Ricciarelli These almond cakes were our go-to gift ...