The finish is what makes it feel like thanks rather than habit. These individually wrapped chocolates are handcrafted in Newbridge, Co. Kildare, where Mary Ann O'Brien founded the company in 1992, and a single-origin dark or a hand-finished praline carries that through better than a supermarket box picked up on the last morning.
For anyone who likes to know the background before they buy, the cocoa is sourced through Cocoa Horizons and the company is a member of Origin Green, with production held to BRC Grade A+ standard. Get the list, format, posting and buying done across four November weeks, and Christmas gifting stops being a December problem.
The third week is for ordering the posted gifts. This is the single most useful thing on the checklist. Ordering mid-November, well ahead of the courier crush, means your gifts travel while the network is quiet and arrive with room to spare. Chocolate keeps, so early delivery is a feature rather than a risk.
Ordering for a workplace rewards a little lead time. Buy the box in the last week of November or the first of December, keep it somewhere cool, and you have a festive gift ready for whichever day the team is finally all in together.
Roses have carried Valentine's Day for so long that they have become almost automatic, which is exactly the problem. A dozen red roses is a safe gift, but a safe gift is rarely a memorable one. They also have a short life, look identical to what half the street received, and are often marked up sharply for the one day. A chocolate collection sidesteps all of that.
What lifts either option above the usual is the finish. The chocolates are handcrafted in Newbridge, Co. Kildare, where Mary Ann O'Brien founded the company in 1992, and that shows in the way each piece is finished rather than simply moulded. A single-origin dark or a hand-finished praline carries more weight in the hand than a foil coin, even at stocking-filler size.
For anyone who likes to know the background before they buy, the cocoa is sourced through Cocoa Horizons and the company is a member of Origin Green, with production held to BRC Grade A+ standard. Get the list, format, posting and buying done across four November weeks, and Christmas gifting stops being a December problem.
The third week is for ordering the posted gifts. This is the single most useful thing on the checklist. Ordering mid-November, well ahead of the courier crush, means your gifts travel while the network is quiet and arrive with room to spare. Chocolate keeps, so early delivery is a feature rather than a risk.
Ordering for a workplace rewards a little lead time. Buy the box in the last week of November or the first of December, keep it somewhere cool, and you have a festive gift ready for whichever day the team is finally all in together.
Roses have carried Valentine's Day for so long that they have become almost automatic, which is exactly the problem. A dozen red roses is a safe gift, but a safe gift is rarely a memorable one. They also have a short life, look identical to what half the street received, and are often marked up sharply for the one day. A chocolate collection sidesteps all of that.
What lifts either option above the usual is the finish. The chocolates are handcrafted in Newbridge, Co. Kildare, where Mary Ann O'Brien founded the company in 1992, and that shows in the way each piece is finished rather than simply moulded. A single-origin dark or a hand-finished praline carries more weight in the hand than a foil coin, even at stocking-filler size.