Not a Treat

The other day I spoke about candy corn and fruitcake. I don't understand why folks don't like them. But it just so happens there is a holiday treat which I don't care about. They arrive annually at Christmas and I avoid them. Candy canes simply have no appeal for me.

They have too much peppermint. They're too sticky when you eat them. They take too long to eat. About the best thing I can say for candy canes are they're all right to melt into your hot chocolate. But only if you can keep the drink hot enough long enough to manage that.

I've read that candy canes were first made to mollify youngsters during Church services. You know, to keep them quiet during pious observances. If you want an explanation of why Church attendance is down among the last few generations, I vote candy canes. Who would actually want to continuing going some place associated with those awful sugar sticks? It's nothing doctrinal, it's repressed memories of having candy canes forced down your gullet.

Candy canes hang around because we've been played. It's Christmas! You have to get your candy canes! Humbug.

Well, I suppose something has to take up the space at the bottom of the candy jar though.

Old Style Christmas Candy

Time, it changes a man. It surely does.

When I was a boy, you knew it was nearing Christmas when me Grandma Cosgriff brought out the Christmas candy. For the holidays, there would always be a bowl of these odd hard candies on the dining room table. There was ribbon candy, and these odd little triangular things in striped colors, and little round, rock hard buttons with color on the edges and images on the faces, flowers or fruit or pictures of Santa even. Some even had what was soft, apparently fruit fillings.

I never cared for those candies. They weren't terrible, and certainly not inedible. Yet they didn't exactly entice you like candy should. You would roll them around in your mouth and suck on them until they, well, I won't say melted away. They more like wasted away. The tastes weren't anything outstanding at all. I might, might pop one into my mouth the entire Christmas season. I never wanted a second.

Yesterday I found myself in a store searching for anything but that candy. Indeed, I hadn't thought of it in ages. Nonetheless, as my eyes roved over a shelf of holiday delights, I discovered bags of Old Fashion Mix Classic Christmas Candy. They were just like what me Grandma Cosgriff set out on Christmas. And I said, out loud in excitement despite being alone in an almost empty store, "Hey! It's Grandma's Christmas Candy!"

And I bought a package of that candy which I never particularly liked.

It's stupid as hell, but I've almost got tears in my eyes from finding bland old fashion Christmas candy from Christmases long past. I guess sentiment trumps taste somehow.