Roses and roast potatoes: readers’ Christmas choices revealed

Thousands of you told us what your perfect Christmas comprised of in our seasonal survey on the issues that really matter.

The typical respondent to our survey will take in an early midnight mass on Christmas eve before returning home to their real Christmas tree decorated with warm white lights. They will not open the presents until the following morning but they will stay at home for dinner and will definitely not watch the annual television speech delivered by the monarch of our nearest neighbour.

Some 66 per cent of more than 4,500 respondents, who answered 23 questions on irishtimes.com, said they preferred Roses sweets to Quality Street, while a whopping 86 per cent said they would be having turkey on December 25th rather than goose or nut roast.

Sprouts will be a feature of dinner for 68 per cent of respondents, while 40 per cent said midnight mass at 7pm was “grand”. Most people (91 per cent) will wait until January before hitting the shops, while 68 per cent said Fairytale of New York by the Pogues was their favourite Christmas tune.

Roast potatoes (46 per cent) were winners in the competition of the spuds followed in close second by “boiled, mashed, roast, boiled in their skins, sweet, chops, croquettes”.

A little over half (56 per cent) of respondents said they would prefer a white Christmas to a grand soft day.