Christmas Spirit Week: Day One

It's Christmas Spirit week here at Debbie's Book Bag! this week. I will be doing some posts that have a Christmas theme, as well as doing some reviews of Holiday themed books. I know you don't all celebrate Christmas so there will be some things for you too!

Sunday is usually my day off from posting reviews unless I have something specific to put up or I'm in catch-up mode. So today I want to focus on something all of us love.... Candy!

Have you ever wondered where the Candy Cane came from? How did it became a Christmas tradition? Or why some people believe it has a religious meaning?

The story of the candy cane is said to originate in Colgne, Germany. The children who worshiped their with their families were were said to be loud and boisterous most of the time and the choirmaster would sometimes give them candy to quiet them. On Christmas the children were especially excited to be a part of the living Nativity ceremony. The choirmaster knew they would be hard to quiet down so he gave them a long, white stick of sugar candy and bent it over, so that it looked like the shepherd's crook from the nativity. He couldn't give them chocolate or other candy because it was considered sacrilegious, but the children loved it and the "candy cane" reminded them of Jesus' birth.

Then in somewhere around 1850 a Swedish immigrant in Ohio started putting candy canes on his Christmas tree and it caught on and lots of other people started doing it also. It was 1900 when candy canes started to look like the canes we see today, with red strips and a peppermint taste. Some religious people use the candy cane as a reminder that Jesus Christ was pure like the white of the candy cane and the red strips represent the wounds he suffered for us. The cane is also in the shape of the shepherd's crook and the letter "j" standing for Jesus. Around 1920 a man in Georgia started making candy canes for his family and friends and turned it into a business. Now most of the candy canes we see today are a result of Bob's Candies in Georgia.

So now you know a little more about the candy cane!

My question for the night is.... what is your favorite Christmas candy and why?

Mine is peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate or what some refer to as Buckeyes! We used to make them when I was a kid and I just loved them. I am a diabetic and just have to stick with one or two now during the season, but they are definitely still my favorite...

What's yours?