Holiday Candy Land

This is the season for not just presents but also for sweets as well. No matter what faiths we were brought up into, there was always candy during this time of year. There was chocolate. There was peppermint. There was always something that gave the holidays their extra sweetness.

It;s the candy more than anything that forms our most cherished memories. There was ribbon candy., one of my grandparents' earliest remembrances. This was simple strands of colored and flavored hard candy cut to resemble bunched up ribbons. It became one of my favorites as well. there's the Advent Calendar where you would open a date and a small chocolate would be waiting for you. The best gifts were the small bags of chocolate coins, used both as Hanukkah gelt and Christmas stocking stuffers. These were magical and you felt like you were special getting them (a funny story here. I gave these to my friend's daughter when she was four. Hillary didn't know you had to peel off the gold foil and ate them whole. In a split second Deb and I realize d what she had done and four seconds later I had spit covered coins in my hand. We undid the foil and Hillary had her first taste of holiday joy. She recovered nicely. She's 22 now and works in Tiffany's marketing department in Manhattan where she can buy real gold coins for herself) Another fun candy gift was the bubblegum coal where you chewed black gum and wound up with a black tongue. That and Droste's chocolate orange were the best stocking stuffers ever!

Nowadays every candy company has some Christmas tie in. There are Butterfinger bells and holiday Hershey kisses. Cadbury's and M&Ms have red , green and white coatings on their chocolates Even Godiva has joined in with their festive ballotins of bonbons. We have all sorts of neat candies for stockings and as present toppers.

This time of year is a veritable candy land for kids and adults alike. Not only do we receive neat gifts but also neat candy celebrating the season.