Right now, every aisle at Trader Joe’s has something you won’t see again for a year after the holidays come to a close. You’ll find peppermint flavored this and that, winter-themed teas, gingerbread in many forms, and festive end-caps (those displays that “cap” the end of an aisle). It’s frankly fun to cruise around and collect a cartful of these celebratory offerings … along with the mundane groceries you have to get anyway. Here’s a listing of the 15 best ones we found on a recent shopping trip!
1. Mini peppermint meringues
This come in a clear plastic carton so you can see the white and pink meringues inside. Year-round, Trader Joe’s has wonderful meringues...these just put a holiday twist on it, with a colorful packaging label showing round candies. These are fat-free.
2. The Baton Lover’s Quartet
Housed in a cute blue cylindrical container decorated with a snowscene and red fox, these batons come in four flavors: hazelnut, cocoa, cookies and cream, and chocolatey orange. They’re delicately rolled wafer cookies with four choices of filling and make for an easy hostess gift.
3. Jingle Jangle Pretzel Twists
These large pretzels are slathered in a peanut butter candy coating, which is good enough on its own, but then the whole affair is sprinkled with dark chocolate candy-coated rounds (essentially, M&Ms) and Joe-Joe’s cookie bits (essentially Oreos). Crazy decadent! The box is black with red and green accents to hint at Christmas.
4. Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s
Speaking of Joe-Joe’s, these ones with crunchy peppermint cream filling dotted with candy cane bits are splendidly delicious and gluten-free. If you want to upscale them further, you can buy the Dark Chocolate Covered Peppermint Joe-Joe's Cookies which are the same thing but dipped in chocolate and placed in different packaging. We personally find the chocolate dipping takes this just a step too far, but the original Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s are perfectly balanced for the sweet tooths among us.
5. Dark Chocolate Covered Peppermint Cremes
These soft, minty, bite-sized chocolate creams let you skip the guesswork of a box of chocolates and just get to the good stuff immediately. The box is a lovely Tiffany blue with red and white accents and, of course, peppermint straws depicted.
6. Salty Honey Toffee Milk Chocolate Covered Crackers
Sugar abounds, and we have to mention yet another holiday treat. This one consists of crackers covered in milk chocolate, sprinkled with toffee, diced almonds and a hint of coffee. The box doesn’t especially scream Christmas or Hanukkah, but it’s located next to the Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s in a red and white box with an old-fashioned font and scrollwork.
7. Peppermint Hot Chocolate
This is what you need to sit by the fire sipping, and maybe Santa would prefer a mug of this instead of milk. Need we say more? It comes in a green and black tin and is made of bittersweet chocolate shavings with natural peppermint flavoring.
8. Stars!
Trader Joe’s is on board with Dark Skies initiatives with its two kinds of boxed stars, featuring shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate. The dark chocolate stars come in a blue and white box with a Hanukkah or winter-themed geometric stars layout, and the mini dark chocolate mint stars are in a lime green box with stars, swoosh lines and a star-shaped cellophane window to see the product inside.
9. English toffee with nuts
This year, we came home with the canister of toffee, a crunchy buttery center surrounded by creamy chocolate dotted with chopped nuts. The packaging shows a handful of the treats with a blue illustration of Big Ben in London with a sprig of holly. Cute.
10. Gingerbread coffee
Not sure how the world feels about these flavored coffees, but if you’re game, this huge 14-oz vessel will deliver gingerbread-flavored coffee for weeks to come. It’s a medium dark roast of Arabica ground coffee in a cheerful red canister decorated with a gingerbread boy.
11. Holiday tea
You can try the decaf Candy Cane Green Tea in happy packaging, showing an illustrated polar bear in a sweater on an ice floe drinking his tea while candy canes bob in the waters around him. Or the Winter Wake Up Tea is a spicy black tea blend with hints of cinnamon and ginger in royal blue packaging with snowflakes and scrollwork.
12. Shareable Shortbread French Butter Cookie
Baby, this thing is the size of a dinner plate! It’s a $7.99 butter cookie topped with sliced almonds and is made for sharing with a half-dozen other people or let’s be honest, a dozen. The packaging is simply a clear bag with a pale blue background, unbranded as a holiday treat.
13. Stollen Crisps
Based on the traditional German Stollen holiday treat, these crispy crackers are embedded with raisins, powdered sugar and orange lemon peels. The box is an elegant blue with a photo of a stollen crisp lodged in a ramiken of some sort of dip, on a folded linen towel, showing more crisps and all the ingredients artfully arranged.
14. Winter Wassail Punch
This is the official beverage of caroling (we just made that up), made of apple, cherry, blackcurrant and lemon juices from concentrate. Plus, some holiday spices and orange peel are added to spice it up. Feel free to drink it plain or add a little extra something-something to help you hit the high note of O Holy Night. To that end, there’s also official Trader Joe’s branded old-fashioned Egg Nog liqueur and Cocoa Cream liqueur in the wine area of the store.
15. Scandinavian Tidings
This cute little red bag with snowflakes and garland decorations has a cellophane window showing the colored gummies in holiday shapes inside: red ornaments, green trees, and translucent stars. The flavors, respectively, are berry, sour apple and sparkling grape. We’re hoping next year for Dala horse shapes; watch for our petition in coming months.
Plus, as always, the store has you covered for greenery, with poinsettia, wreaths, tiny trees and holiday bouquets for sale in the floral area.