While our family has several Christmas traditions, and these are very meaningful to me, there is also one Christmas tradition that is mine alone, and it brings me a great amount of pleasure. Every year, early in December, the people from Scrumptious Delights have a booth in Halifax as part of one of the Christmas craft shows. Every year, I visit them and buy one of their “Victorian Dark” Christmas cakes. It comes wrapped in a brandy-soaked cheesecloth, then cling wrap, then foil, then a lovely plastic packaging. I ration it out over as many days as I can–usually about five. If you dislike a good fruitcake, that’s fine with me–more for me. If you think fruitcake is a joke, then you have just never had one this good. I just had my second piece. So very, very good. I am leaving out one embarrassing part of this story.