I went shopping in Marks & Spencer today with my teen. We were there to pick up some treats after our Specsavers adventure, and as I looked into the sandwich fridge through the crowd of work people frantically grabbing their meal-deal lunches, there it was — the Turkey Feast sandwich, in all its festive glory. Its red, holiday-themed packaging made it proudly stand out from the blandness of the other sandwiches, almost like a beacon of wonder. This must be what the three wise men felt when they saw the Star of Bethlehem.

“Why are you glorifying a store-packaged sandwich?” you might ask. Well, there is something magnificent about the combination of turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. To me, the arrival of festive sandwiches is the true sign of the seasons changing, as reliable as other corporate holiday markers like the Coca-Cola “Holidays are Coming” advert or the John Lewis Christmas ad (which makes me cry without fail every year). But this particular sandwich holds even more meaning. I mean, of course, it’s more significant than the number of layers of filling it has — I can get really deep about anything, including sandwiches (I half blame M&S for this, with their, “It’s not just a festive sandwich, it’s an M&S super sultry, seductive festive sandwich” adverts).

My best friend, WeeGee, and I met in eating disorder recovery. She was a year ahead of me, and her journey was a constant source of hope for me, showing me that recovery was possible. Both of us had struggled with our EDs for most of our lives. When you’ve spent more than 20 years in an eating disorder, recovery can feel strange and unpredictable. Even though I’m now 40, and I’ve spent the last 12 years in recovery, I’ve still spent more than half my life with an eating disorder. Recovery is still entirely possible, but it might look a little different. You might struggle more than you’d like, but this isn’t a failure or a sign you didn’t recover “properly.” It’s just what happens when an ED has been part of your life for so long.

Christmas was always difficult for both of us, even while we were weight stable and in recovery. It’s a holiday where food takes centre stage; everyone talks about it constantly, and every Christmas movie and TV show seems to feature an abundance of food. It reminds you that you’re different — that you don’t enjoy food the way others do (certainly not like Buddy does in Elf). Neither of us enjoyed food unless certain strict parameters were met. We ate to stay in recovery, often viewing it like medication, just something you have to do to stay well. Eating was more of a chore, like ironing or finally folding and putting away the laundry you’ve been avoiding for ages, knowing that it just has to get done.

But one of the things we both actually liked was the festive sandwich. One November, I posted on Facebook that while I wasn’t a fan of Christmas due to the abundance of food everywhere, I was really excited about festive sandwich season. WeeGee was thrilled to see my post, as she, too, loved festive sandwiches. So we decided to make it our mission to try all the sandwiches and find the best one. And just like that, Battle of the Corporate Festive Sandwiches became our own little tradition, something we continued every single year.

We took this tradition very seriously. We had grading criteria for filling ratios, cranberry sauce amounts, and there were negative points for sogginess or stinginess with the stuffing. One year, we even had a serious debate about mayonnaise vs. butter. “Does mayonnaise really belong with cranberry sauce? And why do stores seem to have a vendetta against butter?” (Butter is far superior; mayonnaise is an abomination and definitely doesn’t belong anywhere near cranberry sauce.) Then there was the Year of the Sprout Salsa — Marks & Spencer really pushed the boat out with sprout salsa, perhaps to challenge the stereotype of British food being plain. Surprisingly, it worked! Sprout salsa became the undisputed winner that year. Anything is better than mayonnaise, even sprout salsa.

One incredibly special year, Greggs came up with the “Festive Bake.” I ran home that day to tell WeeGee about it, asking if it counted as part of our sandwich competition (I had, of course, paired it with a side of pigs in blankets). Her reply: “YES, OF COURSE IT COUNTS OMG,” fully in caps lock, just as excited as I was. It was hard to pick a winner that year — Greggs won if the bake was hot, but not if it was cold (a common Greggs conundrum).

One October, WeeGee was diagnosed with breast cancer, and by Christmas, she was undergoing chemotherapy. Naturally, there was less excitement over the sandwiches that year, but we still had some. It felt like a bit of normalcy, a bit of tradition, and a lot of hope. WeeGee was a big fan of hope — she said “This time next year” more than Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses. But the next Christmas, things had become, well, dire. She couldn’t eat much, and though her cancer had become terminal, she told me, “It’s not that bad; I can still have treatment.” I knew why she said that. She wanted me to have hope, too. She couldn’t bear it if I didn’t, and part of me knew that too, but I desperately didn’t want to think there was no hope. I didn’t want to start grieving for her while she was still alive. That year, I ate all the Christmas sandwiches for her and rated them, and she seemed happy I did. As I’ve mentioned before, January 13th was the day she passed away.

The years after her death, the seasonal arrival of festive sandwiches left me feeling empty, even angry. I would stand at the fridge section and either cry or feel furious that she wasn’t there to eat them with me. Every season change felt like something to fight because it meant one more season without her, each one pulling me further from the last time I saw her. But there were times I was brave enough to buy and eat a festive sandwich. Afterward, though, without her to share it with, I was left with the gaping hole she left in my life.

Today was different. Standing in Marks & Spencer, I looked at the sandwich and felt wonder and amusement instead of sadness or anger. All the good memories rushed in, of all the times we celebrated Christmas our way, on our own terms. I thought about how happy she would be to know I was continuing the tradition for her, just like she was happy when I continued it for her during what she called an “ABSOLUTE SHITSHOW” (and for terminal cancer, that’s putting it lightly).

The sandwich shining like a beacon in the fridge was exactly that — a beacon of all the hope and love that made up who she was, of all those times we got CAPS LOCK EXCITED over sandwiches and festive bakes. It was as if I was being hugged in the middle of the store by all the warmth and joy of those little moments. Those joyful moments meant absolutely everything to us, and they’re what we bonded over most. In life, you don’t need grand gestures to feel pure joy. Sometimes, joy can be found in what everyone else might consider mundane. We were able to experience the full joy, warmth, comfort, and excitement over a simple festive sandwich.

Rate My Sandwich

This year I have decided to restart our tradition in WeeGee’s memory, I’m going to rate the first Festive Sandwich of the year — I’m going to share with you the rating for the one I picked up from M&S today:

It’s always tricky to rate the first festive sandwich of the season because there’s nothing to compare it to just yet. So, what WeeGee and I used to do was rebuy them later. To conduct a fair sandwich experiment, it’s necessary to try at least two from each store. One sandwich alone is just anecdotal, and you can’t draw accurate conclusions from a single festive bite (and, of course, this approach conveniently allows for sandwich sampling all season long — maybe it’s my love for turkey sandwich science, or maybe I just like an excuse to have more).

Let’s start with the turkey. I don’t know what kind of magic they weave with turkey in prepackaged festive sandwiches, but somehow, they always manage to elevate it. The turkey was neither dry nor bland — it was delicious. But we did have a problem: in what universe does onion mayonnaise make a great substitute for butter? It added an unexpected twist, with more tears than if I’d peeled an onion to make the mayo myself (okay, I exaggerate, but me crying over a sandwich is as inevitable as tearing up at the John Lewis Christmas ad). There was far too much mayonnaise, and there should never be more mayo than cranberry sauce in a festive sandwich.

As for the cranberry sauce, all of it was on one side. That half had the perfect cranberry-to-filling ratio, while the other side was dry, despite still having too much mayo. How does this mayo manage to make the sandwich both overly moist and dry? Some sort of onion tasting magic? This sandwich would have earned way more points if it had spread that cranberry goodness evenly on both sides. The bacon, however, was perfection, with a lovely smoky flavour that added a warmth I didn’t think was possible for a sandwich that spent 24 hours in my fridge. And bonus points for the stuffing — tasty and generous. Festive sandwiches often skimp on the stuffing, as if it’s some side player, when it’s actually essential to the “festive” feel. After all, stuffing is the scent and taste of Christmas itself.

So, the final rating: a respectable 6.5/10. Tasty, but given our strict standards for the perfect festive sandwich, the rating is fair. Only two festive bites have ever scored a perfect 10 — Pret A Manger (WeeGee’s favourite), and the first year of the Festive Bake at Greggs (my pick, but only if it’s hot—otherwise, it’s an 8).

By the way WeeGee, eating this went against all my ED rules, but I did it, for us.

As WeeGee used to do on her blog, I leave you with a song, WeeGee absolutely loved Frank Turner, this song felt especially fitting for who she was.