Candy Cane Meaning - The Legend of our own Favorite Christmas Candy

There's something that spring naturally in your thoughts at Christmas: trees and trimmings, Santa and stockings and, obviously, candy canes. These colorful sweeties are such a section of the holiday that individuals seldom wonder how they had become, or perhaps the special meaning behind this treat.

Decorating Christmas trees with candy goes back nearly as far as Christmas trees themselves. The forerunner of the modern candy canes are first mentioned in the historical mention of Cologne Cathedral, Germany, in 1670. An insightful clergyman, anticipating a sanctuary filled with wiggling, restless children, prepared special canes to keep up order during a long Christmas service. He arranged to achieve the candy sticks bent to the model of a cane, reminding the youngsters that Jesus is 'the Good Shepherd'. The crook-shaped candy sticks became an annual event in Cologne, as well as the idea spread as soon as Santa's sleighreizhusten



For two centuries, nothing much changed using the candy cane. The treat, still a pure white, crooked cane, spread through Europe. It was brought to the usa, fittingly enough, with a German immigrant August Imgard around 1847. Decorating Christmas trees using the sweet, hard candy caught on quickly in the area of Wooster, Ohio, and soon spread further.

Red striping on the popular candy appeared almost Fifty years later. Nobody knows for sure who started the tradition, but Christmas cards dating just before 1900 show solid white canes hanging on trees; cards next year show the now familiar red-and-white cane. Peppermint was added to the sugar cane at approximately the same time.

                                                                       
Legends with the candy's origin give the components of this popular treat strong Christian meanings. The big red stripe is assumed to represent the blood of Christ, shed to reconnect lost souls with a loving Father-God. These smaller red stripes honor the daddy, Son and Holy Spirit. The white base represents the purity of Christ, as well as the hardness from the candy is likened towards the foundation of the church - Christ's sinless nature. While there is no historical evidence to guide the notion that candy canes were originally invented to represent these associations with Christianity, the legend, such as the candy itself, has turned into a section of Christmas.

So, next time you hang one of these brilliant sweet treats on your own Christmas tree or have a lick with this peppermint canes, think back on the clever preacher and be grateful - a strategy to maintain children still during church has developed into one of the fondest parts of a particular holiday.