Just over 50 days before Christmas, panettone and pandoro have already arrived from Vinyasa, the well-known importer of Italian products in Kenya.
Vinyasa, which means paradise in Sanskrit, is in fact now the Gourmets' Paradise, panettone pandoro almond cakes, champagne sparkling wines and bubbles for all tastes.
We Italians are crazy about these Christmas sweets, but few know the symbolic value of panettone: its ingredients include sultanas which in the past represented ‘money’, candied orange peels which symbolised ‘love’ and candied citron which represented ‘eternity’, so that panettone represented a man's greatest chimera, an eternal life full of love and money. Giving a panettone was an omen and a wish for all this to come true, therefore an extremely welcome gift not only for its goodness.
It is also unbelievable how the consumption of panettone in many countries of the world has become a daily affair and not linked to Christmas. In France, Brazil, now also in China, panettone is consumed all year round, as an everyday dessert.
And what about pandoro? 
Panettone is from Milan and pandoro is from Verona. Pandoro there is also called Nadalin, Christmas cake, and it is said to date back to 1200, to the Della Scala family, lords of the city, and their desiderata: an original cake for this festivity. The panettone is from Milan, and apart from the many legends that want it to be the result of the love between a baker and a girl, or the invention of a cook of Ludovico il Moro, it derives from the Christmas Pan, which in German is called Kugelhupf.
Bon ton prescribes that Christmas sweets - panettone, pandoro, panforte, and all the thousands of traditional ‘sweet breads’ - should be eaten strictly with the hands, so as not to touch with the metal of the cutlery what Christian symbolism presents to us as the Bread of Life.
Let us close by paraphrasing with Hamlet and Shakespeare: Panettone or Pandoro? That is the question. 
Whether it is nobler to the soul to endure the sultanas and candied fruit or to take arms against this sea of tribulation and shipwreck in the soft icing sugar...
And with Ungaretti:
Everyone stands alone
on the centre of the scales
pierced by a slice of pandoro:
and is immediately on a diet.