Oh you better watch out, you better not cry, better not pout I’m telling you why -Christmas candy is coming to town in July. Ok, ok, don’t get your mistletoe in a twist! I haven’t lost all my marbles yet, but with Christmas just 6 months away I thought it would be jolly to think about the season in this sweltering heat.

Oh what fun it is to imagine red and white striped candy canes on your tree, or white, green and red Hershey kisses in a bowl on your coffee table. Or how about them stuck in the middle of those Peanut Butter Blossom cookies? Mmmmmmmm . . . I can almost smell them coming out of my oven and plopping them into my mouth! Here’s an idea: why not surprise your kids and have a Christmas in July day? Surprise them and hang up their stockings on July 24, then fill them with some special candy treats? Leave one little present by their bedroom door with a note that says “Only 153 days until Christmas, so be good for goodness sake!” Whenever I think of Christmas candy I remember one Christmas in junior high, I made a gum drop wreath using multi colored gum drops. I bought a white foam ring and some double pointed tooth picks and filled the wreath with gum drops. Then I looped red ribbon around it and tied a big bow at the top. It always hung on a mirror on my dad’s big meat cooler every Christmas until New Years. I think I ate every 10^th gum drop that came out of that big bag during that fun project! For another festive creation try all green gum drops with a few red ones for the berries. Decorating with candy is as endless as your imagination.

Candy Favorites has a sleigh full of Christmas candy for you to choose from. There are Gummi Christmas bears, trees and snowmen, Christmas Jelly Wreaths, Marshmallow Santas, Brach’s Peppermint and Spearmint Star Brite Mints and even Candy Cane Peppermint Tootsie Pops! I don’t know if I can wait till Christmas to sample them all! But I think the candy most associated with Christmas has to be the candy cane. Did you know that candy canes go back about 350 years when candy makers were creating hard sugar sticks? Then in 1670, a choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany, bent the all white sugar sticks to resemble a shepherd’s staff during the long nativity services for the children.

“The first historical reference to the candy cane in America was in 1847, when a German immigrant called August Imgard decorated the Christmas tree in his Wooster, Ohio home with candy canes. About fifty years later, the first red-and-white striped candy canes appeared. No one knows who exactly invented the stripes and Christmas cards prior to the year 1900 showed only all-white candy canes.” (The History of Candy Canes by Mary Bellis) So Ho, Ho, Ho! Whatever your Christmas candy pleasures are, July is a great time to think about them . . . and order them . . . and enjoy them early! Don’t forget to include them as you make out your Christmas list. They’re the sweetest addition to your holiday treats, decorating and gift giving. Now if you’ll excuse me I need find my sunscreen, pop in my Christmas CDs, grab my iced tea, put on my Santa hat and soak up the sun on my deck as I sing my own version of the Twelve Days of Christmas . . . “On the fifth day of Christmas in July my true love gave to me, 5 Fort Knox Milk Chocolate Gold Coins, 4 Lindor Dark Chocolate Balls, 3 Reese’s Peanut Butter Christmas Trees, 2 Naughty or Nice Charms Sweet and Sour Pops and a 7 ounce chocolate Hershey Kiss! (No worries about me quitting my day job! Haha!) So have yourself a merry little, delicious, candy Christmas in July! It’s the (second) most wonderful time of the year!