SarahG

World Market have now got their British Christmas goodies out for sale. I checked the packaging and the Cadbury's chocolate is NOT Hersheys!

Jerseygirl

Walker's mince pies are pretty crap...better than nothing but still crap.

NSBlake

There is just something about Cadbury's Xmas decorations...........

We are lucky up here as we can get hold of most of the things we miss bvut its all at a price.

I have organised to be back in the UK for in the middle of December for work (a complete coincidence.... ;-) ) So I will be taking one suitcase for clothes and the other empty to fill with quality street, cadbury's choccies, bourbon bisciuts, custard cremes etc etc etc

Jerseygirl

Don't forget M&S Christmas pud and mince pies.

NSBlake

Luckily, they will be homemade - my stay at home wife (her choice) will be making those!

I'm getting very excited about Xmas - not long until I can sit down and watch the Muppets Christmas Carol (cheeses for the mices)!

The sad thing is I'm 39 and we don't have kids..........although we could be joind by one in time for Xmas if he/she is a couple of weeks early! :-)

Jerseygirl

Congratulations...sounds like 2012 will be off to a good start for you and your wife.

Bob

Homemade mince pies, probably store bought filling for us...it's only me and the little one who likes them anyway

But Christmas isn't Christmas without crackers, with the crap hat and the crap jokes

Oh, one thing I do miss and haven't seen here, those naff hollow chocolate hanging tree decorations...anyone remember those?

nethead

I remember those, my sister usually sends me the Cadbury choc tree decorations, but they are solid not hollow.

I miss those big tubes of sweets you get, like smarties, fruit pastilles etc they are ace as stocking stuffers.

Jerseygirl

I either bring the choc decorations back from the UK...but this year I'll be buying them in Toronto.

SarahG

ooh good idea Jerseygirl. I am off to Canada for Thanksgiving as it is our 10th wedding anniversary so I think I'll stock up on some things there for Christmas too.

Jan Alaska

just checked on their site, theres 3 in the Portland area. We should be there for a family visit before Christmas so I'll be stocking up on the roses and cadburys

Egg and Cress

We had a World Market here for a while, but their prices were so exorbitant that the business failed miserably. It was only here for a couple of years. Don't know if their prices were the norm or if the store manager decided to increase his profit margin, figuring people here were dumb enough to spend that kind of money to get foreign-made products.

Orangepants

I find the prices pretty reasonable in World Market but then if you compare to what I was used to...In the Cayman Islands - they import quite a lot of British goods but at a price... for example a normal size Easter Egg, not huge just regular Cadbury was the equivalent of $30! A 200g bar of Cadburys is $10 and Irish bacon is $17 a pound... It flies off the shelves on a Thursday after the delivery!! If you really want it you will pay any price!
Some US guests visited me last year just before I left Cayman and adored the chocolate and the biscuits etc - on the way to the airport they went to the grocery store to get some supplies - they spent over $200 on curly wurlies, crunchies, choc and biscuits and it lasted them less than a week! I go back there next week for a couple of weeks - they have already given me the list to bring back

Egg and Cress

I get the impression, just by what we see in stores in other cities, that the Memphis market is jacked up much higher (profit margin equaling "bottom line") than a lot of them. I can't decide if the managers are coerced into stocking some of this stuff against their wishes and "better" judgement or if they truly think the market will bear the prices.

Considering that I believe there are a lot of ex-pats in our area (Scots, Irish, NI, Brits based on our former circle of acquaintances), I really don't understand why someone doesn't do some demographics research and come up with a viable import shop. We did have one that was run by a couple from London - they had all the sweets, a lot of the Christmas stuff, Easter eggs, Fairy Liquid, that brown medicinal smelling liquid (that I can't think of the name of) that's used for everything from cleaning floors to treating cold sores, not to mention real bacon and bangers, etc., but because they couldn't (or didn't) have a consistent stock of the meats, and because the husband was such a jerk, they lost trade and eventually had to close their store. They had a loyal and steady following until the debacle with the meats, including us; we'd go in there about every 2 weeks and spend $150-$200 on British stuff!

Oops! Didn't mean to write a book - it's just that we're so frustrated with this area and it's refusal to acknowledge that the rest of the world exists!

Bob

TCP?