Merry Post-Christmastime! May your day after be filled with contented lethargy, stocking stuffer candy snarfing, and cats rustling joyfully through bins of discarded wrapping paper.

Yet for bootstrapping cereal bloggers such as myself, the end of Christmas means I’ve got a mountain of cereal news and reviews to surmount. January is the biggest time of the year for new breakfast releases, and cereal company PR reps have been mailing me salvos of sweet stuff for the past few weeks. And while this may have been a serendipitous way to find boxes for all the gifts I gave, I still have enough cardboard clogging up my house to provide beds for twenty more cats than I already own.

By my cursory count, there are nearly two-dozen cereals in my kitchen, and while not all of them call for a blog article, I certainly have my work cut out for me. So before I dive into 2020’s best and brightest breakfast inductees, I want to ease in with a quick look at a U.K. exclusive that’s really bringing a snowy inn’s worth of cheer and innovation to this winter.

First off, what are mince pies? I certainly didn’t know before researching this cereal, but mince pies are traditional British Christmas desserts. They’re small pastries filled with (meatlesss) “mincemeat” made of raisins, currants, and other dried fruit plus brown sugar, citrus, and “mixed spice.” Mixed spice is a potent powder made from ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, allspice and more. All this together makes mince pies the sharp, sweet and juicy cousins to the drier fruitcake.

But how does this translate to a cereal? Very strangely, at least to a palate long-Americanized by Doritos and…ugh…McDonald’s Grilled Cheese (which is totally a thing and not just a burger without meat etc. because they flip the buns over to get a more even grilling surface area, and I’m totally not jonesing for one right now).

From the start, one unfortunate truth is clear: the thickly thatched wheat shell in Mince Pie Wheats kind of just gets in the way. Unlike the heavily frosted Mini-Wheats we get here in the states, these shells are wholly grained and a bit bland when compared to the richness of Mince Pie Wheats’ filling. I suppose this might be a good thing in some sense, as the shells act as buffers for the intensity inside, but I still think if the wheats had more golden toastiness, they’d be better pastry vehicles for the whole operation.

As a complete contrast to the simple shells, Mince Pie Wheats filling is more dense, complex and layered than an ogre’s onion upside-down cake. Of the many mincemeat ingredients I listed above, it can be tough to pick the most pronounced ones out of the spicy-sweet and fruity swirl Sainsbury’s has pumped into each Wheat.

If pressed, I’d say cinnamon, nutmeg, and raisin stand out the most, but there are several other subtle notes of biting spice, anise, and wrinkled fruit. This is an interesting and certainly unique blend of flavors. Plus it certainly tastes like a cozy, wintery evening in front of a fire. However, Mince Pie Wheats presents such a nuanced mouthful that after a while, it becomes a bit too much, like dried grape potpourri. Again, the less-flavorful shell balances this out, and milk helps too, but ultimately I couldn’t bring myself to eat more than a small bowl of this stuff every couple days.

By packing so much yuletide yumminess in each wheat biscuit, Sainsbury’s has almost over-accomplished its mission to make a mincemeat-filled cereal. Granted, the question of whether it tastes accurate, you’ll have to consult a native Briton to get a clear answer. In the meantime, I’m going to neutralize my palate with a sugar cookie the size of a yule log.

The Bowl: Sainsbury’s Mince Pie Wheats

The Breakdown: Genuinely very spiced-up and fruity, this cereal borders on sensory overload—a funny conclusion, given how the mincemeat’s cumbersome container.

The Bottom Line: 7 geometrically superior grilled cheeses out of 10