The making sits behind all of this. These chocolates are handcrafted in Newbridge, Co. Kildare, where Mary Ann O'Brien started the company in 1992, and a boxed selection is put together to survive the journey and arrive looking as it should.

The third thing is the address and the message. A gift sent to a workplace needs to arrive on a day the recipient is in. A gift to a home is safer if someone is likely to be there, though a boxed selection left in a porch will come to no harm in cold weather. Adding a written message at the point of ordering means the gift arrives ready to give rather than needing a separate card.

The egg will always have its place under the age of about twelve. For everyone else at the Easter chocolate hamper table, a hamper built around darker, hand-finished chocolate is the more considered gift, and the one more likely to be finished with pleasure rather than obligation.

For Secret Santa, individually wrapped chocolates hit the brief without the guesswork. They read as considered rather than grabbed from a garage on the way in, they suit almost anyone, and they sit comfortably inside a modest budget. A small boxed selection of hand-finished pralines does more for a colleague than another novelty mug.

The first thing to know is that chocolate is a well-behaved thing to post. It keeps, it is not fragile in the way glass is, and a boxed assortment is built to hold its shape in transit. Individually wrapped pieces travel particularly well, since each one is protected inside the box. The main enemy is heat rather than handling, which is rarely an issue in a British or Irish winter and manageable at other times of year with sensible timing.

None of this rules roses out entirely. If your partner loves flowers, buy the flowers. But if you want a gift that lasts past the week, suits their taste and does not look like everyone else's, a chocolate collection is the stronger choice, on its own or alongside a smaller bunch.