The wrapping is the point. A box of individually wrapped pieces can be opened and left on a shared desk or in the kitchen, and people take one as they pass. Nobody has to break into a communal slab or worry about who touched what. For a team that is half in the office and half at home on any given day, a wrapped piece also keeps until the person it was meant for is actually in.

The final few days are for anything local. If you have left it late, a share bag chocolates bag or a boxed selection picked up in person still reads as considered, particularly when the day itself is spent in company.

There is a practical side too. Individually wrapped pieces travel and keep well, so you can buy in late November and not worry about them before the day. They also make it easy to keep one adult stocking a little different from the children's without buying separate boxes.

By the end of November the work is done. December becomes about seeing people rather than chasing delivery slots, and nothing on the list is left to the week where everything sells out.

The making is where it earns its place. These chocolates are handcrafted in Newbridge, Co. Kildare, where Mary Ann O'Brien founded the company in 1992, and a single-origin dark, hand-finished, is a more personal gift than flowers bought from a bucket at a garage forecourt.

A hand-finished chocolate collection suits this moment well because it does not need to be tied to a specific festive theme the way a lot of December gifting is. A collection or a small hamper works as easily in January as it would in any other month, without needing seasonal packaging that would look out of place once the tree has come down and the decorations are away.