A Ode to Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cakes

HECK YEAH I’M WRITING A WHOLE BLOG POST ABOUT MY HOLIDAY NOSTALGIA FOR MASS PRODUCED SNACK CAKES. WHAT COULD BE CLOSER TO THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT THAN UNHEALTHY BLOBS OF SUGAR CRANKED OUT BY A MASSIVE CORPORATION?

No, but seriously, as much as I may shake my head and crack wise at the sight of the Little Debbie Christmas displays popping up grocery stores a week before Halloween, I’m secretly always excited by the sight. Forget seeing Santa at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Little Debbie is the TRUE harbinger of the holiday season. I still remember the one year where it seemed like the stores had put out the Christmas Tree Cakes especially laughably early… and a week or so later they’d all been bought, and we never got any resupplies during actual December, so we just had to go without any Christmas Tree Cakes that year. That happened in 2019. Clearly, the lack of Little Debbie snacks that Christmas is to blame for 2020. It’s the only logical explanation. So let’s get nostalgic for holiday-themed products!

Obviously, we need to start off with the centerpiece: The Christmas Tree Cake. I wish I could start things off with some warm and fuzzy memory of the first time I ever had a Christmas Tree Cake, but they’re so deeply ingrained in my holiday experience, I probably wasn’t physically capable of forming permanent memories the first time I had one. No, seriously, the original Christmas Tree cake debuted in 1985, just one year after my own debut. These things have been around for a WHILE.

What’s funniest about the Christmas Tree Cakes to me, actually, is that I really don’t care much for the classic Zebra Cakes that they’re based on. I mean, the difference is minimal, and mostly a matter or presentation. I can’t imagine the red frosting stripes actually taste much different from the brown ones on the usual Zebra Cakes. No, the difference is all in that dusting of green sugar on top. Because when you’re looking to improve a few layers of sugar, with a squishy layer of sugar inside, and a coating of sugar outside, clearly the thing to do is to add EVEN MORE SUGAR.

Now, as with everything we have fond cherished memories of, the Christmas Tree Cakes just aren’t the same as they used to be. Who out there remembers that the ORIGINAL cake design (seen above) was basically a solid arrowhead shape, and the wedges weren’t cut into the sides to suggest “branches” until around 2012? Truly, the Mayans tried to warn us. What’s more interesting to me, though, is that there’s occasionally been a bigger, fatter variant floating around. I’ve only seen these in the wild once, in a display set up in a Sheetz, of all places. They weren’t even being sold in a box, but were wrapped up individually. All the better for truckers needing their holiday fix way too early, I guess. But yeah, these Christmas Tree Cakes were quite notably wider than the regular ones, like to the point of having around an extra half of a tree in every tree. I’ve never seen that variant in grocery stores, and have no idea if they're even still made today. Maybe they’re only intended for truckers, who need that extra bit of cake to carry them through that long haul?

Anyway, we have to acknowledge that I’ve only talked about the “classic” Christmas Tree Cake so far. They’ve had other variants over the years that were a lot more substantial than just changing the shape a bit. The most obvious variation is the chocolate tree… which I’m a bit surprised I haven’t seen on store shelves this year. Admittedly, I don’t MIND the absence all that much, because I’ve never really been a big fan of the chocolate trees. And I’m not the only one, apparently, since I have plenty of memories of the displays in their final form, just before the grocery stores clearing them out, having all the regular Christmas Tree Cakes sold out but still having a full selection of chocolate that barely anybody wanted. Chocolate Christmas Tree Cakes are like the Mad Catz controller of Christmas Tree Cakes, the one you settle for when your older sibling already claimed the “real” one. And no, person reading this who actually likes the chocolate ones better, I won’t apologize for hurting your feelings.

The real oddities, though, are the OTHER variations that have cropped up over the years. Did you even remember that there have been other flavors of Christmas Tree Cake over the years? I don’t think any of them have lasted for very long. One year, I remember there being a Red Velvet Cake variation, which was certainly ambitious of them.

The look of the thing was quite unique, with green frosting rather than the usual white. And admirable idea, but one I don’t think ever really worked. For one thing, I don’t think any or us fully realize just how many gaps there are in the frosting of a standard Christmas Tree Cake, because the yellow cake and the white frosting kind of blend together (and with the chocolate variety, even more so). When they tried to cover a dark red cake in green frosting, though, every single crack and thin patch in the icing was immediately obvious. They just looked kind of pitiful, way worse than that picture up there would lead you to expect. More importantly, I don’t recall them tasting all that great either.

But while I obviously don’t miss the Red Velvet Christmas Tree Cakes, the same cannot be said for the Holiday Spice variety.

Yeah, as far as I can remember, they only did these for one year, but that was long enough for this variation to make quite an impression on me. As the name implies, these had some “spice” flavoring added to the cake mix (I like to imagine they had leftover Pumpkin Spice ingredients that year) and a slightly different frosting design with orange sugar instead of green. They weren’t life-changing or anything, and I can definitely imagine somebody accidentally buying them when they wanted the regulars, which would have been pretty annoying. I mean, whatever I might have to say about the Chocolate and Red Velvet versions, you always knew what they were at first glance. Still, I really liked the Holiday Spice Trees, an would love to see them come back one year. Admittedly, though, a more distinctive visual flair would probably be a good idea.

That’s all the variations of the Christmas Tree Cake itself that I know about, though if you know of some even more obscure variation that’s totally flown under my radar, please do let me know. In the mean time, let’s move on to the broader Little Debbie Expanded Universe! Yup, they’ve had plenty of other Christmas-branded products over there the years, and I’m pretty sure I’ve tried all of them at least once. Heck, they rolled out two brand new ones this year: Mini Christmas Tree Doughnuts and Mini Muffins.

And you know what? I’m impressed! The muffins are a bit on the plain side, with no Christmas-y decorations beyond a bit of green and red “sprinkles” that just look like discolorations in the dough. But you know what? They taste great. They’re “buttery vanilla” flavored, and I’m down with both those things. Sure, it's probably not any different from any regular non-holiday muffin, but it's still a flavor that works well in this context.

I’m also quite impressed by the Christmas Tree Doughnuts, which admittedly also just taste like your usual mini-doughnuts with an extra layer of frosting on top. I’ve heard people complain that they’re too dry, due to the lack of that cream layer in the middle, and I guess I can see that. The frosting is a bit more bland than what’s on the Trees too. It doesn’t bother me, though. What I’m more impressed with, actually, is the presentation. I dunno if this is me being too easily impressed, or a demonstration of just how low my expectations of mass produced snacks deservedly are, but I’m honestly shocked by the fact that the doughnuts in the bag really do look like the ones on the picture. Like, the picture shows exactly what the name implies: doughnuts with the distinctive Christmas Tree Cake pattern on the icing, but I was all prepared to find the red stripes in all sorts of gross disarray and all the green sugar having fallen off and collected at the bottom of the bag and so on. But no! That really is what they look like! I’m weirdly impressed by this! Granted, it’s obvious that they’ve cheated a big and somehow woven the pattern into a single layer of frosting rather than having several layers of toppings. It kind of looks a bit like the kid’s toy version of a movie prop if that makes any sense. But if that’s what it takes to not look like a messy blob, then I’ll take it. Good job, Debbie!

Moving on, what else is also on store shelves this year? Well, they’ve got those North Poll Nutty Buddies Bars again, which I’m always a bit surprised by.

I mean, I don’t dislike them, it’s just… I dunno, I just don’t naturally associate peanut butter with the broad spectrum of Christmas flavors. Also, just judging from appearances, it looks to me like a snack that should be Candy Cane flavored, or some kind of peppermint, not peanut butter. And be honest, that sounds like a flavor that would be more natural in this context, doesn’t it? And yet, it works well enough. Like I said, I don’t hate Nutty Buddies or anything, it just feels like the odd snack out to me.

Also, there’s the classic Gingerbread Man cookie, which is just a staple… that I’ve never been able to get into.

I’m not even sure what it is, because I don’t actively DISLIKE them, either, but they just don’t do much of anything for me. Like, the Nitty Buddies seem like an odd fit to me, but I still “get” it. With the Gingerbread Men, though… they’re just THERE. Maybe it’s a texture thing. I remember some other long-forgotten company used to do their own little Gingerbread Man snacks every Christmas that were much harder and crunchier than the soft and squishy Little Debbie ones, and I always liked those things a lot more. Maybe I just wish I had those instead? In any case, I will concede that they’re fine for what they are, and if you’re unwisely binging on one of every Little Debbie treat all at once, that ginger flavor does work pretty well as a pallet cleanser. But outside of that…

I dunno, my Mom really likes the Gingerbread Man Cookies, and she also really likes the Cherry Cordials… which the first draft of this blog had a whole rant about me not having been able to find in stores yet.

This was odd, because they WERE in the “group shot” that went out announcing the two new snacks, thus implying that they were SUPPOSED to be going out this year. But then again, I’d still yet to see the entire Little Debbie line-up of 2024 all in one place at any store when I bashed out that first draft. Thankfully, a week or two later, our local Harris Teeter FINALLY got a full compliment of everything all out on the same display, and there they were! It’s a Christmas miracle… in mid-November! Anyway, I used to make the joke that the Cherry Cordials were basically a Christmas version of a Moon Pie, with cherry cream instead of marshmallow… but I also hadn’t had a Moon Pie in ages when I would crack that joke. I actually got a pack of Pumpkin Spice Moon Pies this year, though, and was surprised to find they weren’t shaped anything like the Cherry Cordials, so what the heck have I been thinking of all this time? Seriously, though, this is the only cherry-flavored item on Little Debbie’s whole Christmas roster, so it goes without saying that I’m a pretty big fan of the Cordials. That said, a little of those things do go a LONG way, so I usually don’t end up eating anywhere near as many of them as I do of the other snacks. Hopefully, that’s not the sort of thing that might result in Cherry Cordials actually going away for real. Clearly, I need to go out and buy five more boxes. Gotta do my part, ya know?

Speaking of which, let’s move on to the really fun stuff: the snacks that Little Debbie won’t let us have anymore. Oh yeah, there’s been plenty of discontinued Christmas snacks over the years, and I’m not just talking about those canceled Tree Cake spin-offs we covered earlier. Let’s run through as many of those as I can remember! On the bottom of the list, where I very much DON’T miss them, are the variations of Swiss Cake Rolls that have clogged the shelves over the years. I can specifically recall two: one that was some kind of Candy Cane flavor and another that was Eggnog flavored. The latter in particular I recall as being no good at all, so they can keep that one locked away in the vault. I have no clear memory of the Candy Cane Rolls one way or the other, which is probably still a damning indictment all by itself. Besides, I maintain my stance that if you ARE going to do a Candy Cane flavored treat, it really ought to be a wafer snack like the Nutty Buddies.

But you know what I most definitely have memories of? Christmas Spice Cookie Wreaths.

Man, if they were to ever bring back any discontinued Christmas snack, it REALLY needs to be these things. I can’t recall if the “Christmas Spice” in these were the same as what they put in the Christmas Tree Cakes that one time, but I know it worked really well in a cookie context. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the Cookie Wreaths were low key my favorite of all the Little Debbie Christmas snacks, even above the Christmas Tree Cakes! …so of COURSE they haven’t done them in years. I do recall them trying to fill that cookie-shaped hole in the roster with Christmas Star Cookies once, but those were just plain old shortbread cookies rather than the spiced stuff the Cookie Wreaths were made of. I mean, they weren’t bad, and I probably would have liked them just fine alongside the Wreaths, but as a replacement? Nah, man. So yeah, circulate the petition, fire up the hashtag, let’s bring back Little Debbie Christmas Spice Cookie Wreaths.

…oh right, and there’s also the Brownies. They’ve done, like four different shapes of those over the years, from the tree-shaped ones to the a couple different frosting patterns stamped onto a generic octagon shape… but you know what? Screw those things. They’re like eating disappointment. The brownies are what you settle for when even the chocolate Christmas Tree Cakes are sold out. And no, I’m not going to apologize to all the brownie fans I’ve offended ether. Merry Christmas.

Oh, and just for the record, OF COURSE those shirts in the opening image are things I currently own! What about the blog you just read would ever make you think that WASN'T true?