The Shepherd's Staff

Around the seventeenth century, European-Christians began to adopt the use of Christmas trees as part of their Christmas celebrations. They made special decorations for their trees from foods like cookies and sugar-stick candy. The first historical reference to the familiar cane shape goes back to 1670, when the choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany, bent the sugar-sticks into canes to represent a shepherd's staff. The all-white candy canes were given out to children during the long-winded nativity services. It spread throughout Europe.

The first historical reference to the candy cane being in America goes back to 1847, when a German immigrant called August Imgard decorated the Christmas tree in his Wooster, Ohio home with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, but Christmas cards prior to the year 1900 showed only all-white candy canes. Christmas cards after 1900 showed illustrations of striped candy canes. Around the same time, candy-makers added peppermint and wintergreen flavors to their candy canes and those flavors then became the traditional favorites.

About ten years ago, some manufacturers started to make multi-colored candy canes in other flavors.

My personal favorite is cherry. They are my sweet treat at Christmas time. I love them! They used to be easy to open, but now with the shrink wrap, they are a pain in the patooty!

The storm is over. Yesterday we officially got over an inch of rain, which may not sound like a lot to many people in a 24 hr period, but for us it broke a daily record set back in 1902. (I actually showed 1.5" in my gauge.) The sun is out now and the sky is blue. It's going to be around 60F most of the week so I'm going to try to enjoy it.

Happy hump day!