15 Places to Buy the Season’s Sweetest Holiday Gifts

Need to satisfy a sweet tooth (or several) on your holiday shopping list?

Head to these delicious destinations for an abundance of sweet treats and tasty gift ideas…

1. Purdys Chocolatier

Richard Carmon Purdy started selling chocolates in downtown Vancouver in 1907. Now Purdys Chocolatier is kept as busy as Willy Wonka’s factory throughout the holiday season, producing chocolates—milk, dark, white and vegan mylk—for absolutely every taste and preference. Find stocking stuffers, advent calendars, festive tins, gift baskets and more. Sales of the Dear Santa chocolate bar and the 40-piece Dear Santa chocolate gift box help support local children’s hospitals across Canada.

2. Ladurée

Stepping into the Ladurée boutique and tea salon on Robson Street feels like a mini vacation to France, complete with macarons, madeleines and perfect pains au chocolat. For the holidays, the charming shop carries endless possibilities for the fussy foodie on your list, including limited-edition (and highly collectible) macaron gift boxes and an assortment of yule logs, painstakingly prepared in the same way as the bûches de Noël in Paris. Orders for yule logs can be placed starting December 1, and the gorgeous creations can be picked up December 19 or later. New this year: the Mont Blanc yule log.

3. Bon Macaron Patisserie

At any time of year, Bon Macaron Patisserie sells mouth-watering macarons—which look almost too pretty to eat—in flavours ranging from maple caramel to bacon to taro blackberry. During the holiday season, festive flavours make their annual appearance: candy cane, gingerbread, rum and eggnog, cranberry white chocolate and other favourites. The patisserie has permanent locations on Granville Island and in Victoria, as well as a booth in the Vancouver Christmas Market.

4. Karameller

Whether you’re seeking sweets, sours, chocolates, licorice or vegan candies, Karameller has them—and then some. Most popular are the large or small jars that contain a sweet mix, a sour mix, or a mix of the two. Shipping is $10 within British Columbia, or Vancouverites can arrange pickup in Kitsilano on Saturday afternoons.

5. Rocky Mtn Chocolate

Founded in Whistler in 1988, Rocky Mtn Chocolate now has more than 45 locations across Canada, each one overflowing with small-batch chocolates, fudge and caramels. The new holiday collection features a Frosty character sculpture filled with foil-wrapped chocolates, as well as a Pinnacle Box crammed full of everything needed to satisfy any chocolate cravings.

6. Sugarfina

If there’s someone on your holiday shopping list who loves candy but doesn’t love the tacky packaging that candy often comes in, then look no further than Sugarfina. The sweet company makes Instagram-worthy candy cubes and candy bento boxes filled with tasty treats such as champagne bears, Italian spritz gummies, sugar lips, coconut toffee macadamias, tequila grapefruit sours and maple bourbon caramels.

7. Thomas Haas Chocolates

The sweet seasonal creations at Thomas Haas Chocolates are always meticulously crafted—from the adorable chocolate reindeer and chocolate truffle trees to the holiday cookies and Christmas stollen (traditional German fruit-and-nut loaf). Haas himself is a fourth-generation pâtissier, and his two locations (in Kitsilano and North Vancouver) have been pleasing even the pickiest of local palates for years.

8. Faubourg

At any time of year, the cookies, macarons, madeleines, cakes and pains au chocolat at Faubourg are irresistible. And during the festive season, the Holiday Gift Basket makes a perfect present, with its carefully curated sweet treats. The French-inspired café/bakery has locations in Yaletown, downtown and Kerrisdale.

9. EastVan Bees

EastVan Bees is about as local and sustainable as a business can get, collecting honey from hives throughout Vancouver. The sweet end product is chemical-free, multi-floral honey that is cold extracted and gently filtered—the perfect present for any locavore who has a taste for Mother Nature’s finest sweetener.

10. Jive

Based in Vancouver, Jive has hives all along the West Coast—from California to B.C.—and in Alberta. The company make 100 percent raw honey that is sweet and pure enough to satisfy even a honey connoisseur such as Winnie the Pooh.

11. The Bay

The Bay is a convenient place to find stocking stuffers, especially sweets such as Squish candies, Jelly Belly jelly beans, Hudson’s Bay fudge and chocolates by Lindt or Godiva.

12. Sugarwish

With Sugarwish, the gift recipient gets to choose which candies or snacks to fill their custom box with. The palate-pleasing possibilities range from chocolates, gummies and jawbreakers to nuts, trail mix and dried fruit.

13. Beaucoup BakeryRich Won

Beaucoup Bakery is welcoming the holly jolly time of year with treats such as yule logs in two irresistible flavours—Framboise Vanille and Chocolat et Mont Blanc—along with a 12-piece set of holiday bonbons and a whole new assortment of festive cookies. These seasonal sweets can be ordered now for pickup between December 2 to 24. In addition to its long-time location near South Granville, Beaucoup will soon be opening a second location, in the St. Regis Hotel downtown.

14. Indigo

In addition to seasonal sweets such as chocolates, caramels, candies, shortbread and snowman-shaped marshmallow drink toppers, Indigo also carries everything needed to serve festive treats. Cheerful dessert plates, napkins, aprons, serving trays, cake stands and wooden serving boards (look for the one shaped like a gingerbread person) all make thoughtful gifts.

15. Temper Chocolate and Pastry

The jolly elves at West Vancouver’s Temper Chocolate & Pastry are getting into the spirit of the season with a new holiday collection that includes stocking stuffers and whimsical Christmas-tree showpieces stocked with treats. Also on offer are traditional festive favourites like German stollen fruitcakes made with orange and marzipan, plus Bûche de Noël log cakes in Salted Caramel, Vanilla Raspberry and Chestnut varieties. Owner Steven Hodge’s signature and perennially sold-out chocolate advent calendar is also making its return—an enchanting conversation piece with miniature chocolates and confections waiting behind every window to sweeten the seasonal countdown to Christmas Day.