Today is: National Candy Cane Day

News-Messenger/News Herald
·1 min read
Candy canes brought to the top of Camelback Mountain by Camelback Santa and his helpers for hikers that reach the top of Camelback Mountain on Dec. 11, 2022, in Phoenix. He's been making the 2.4-mile hike during the weekends leading up to Christmas for nine years.
Candy canes brought to the top of Camelback Mountain by Camelback Santa and his helpers for hikers that reach the top of Camelback Mountain on Dec. 11, 2022, in Phoenix. He's been making the 2.4-mile hike during the weekends leading up to Christmas for nine years.

Popular during the holiday season, the candy cane is celebrated today. The cane-shaped hard candy is usually peppermint flavored, and white with red stripes, but can be of a variety of flavors and colors.

There is a lot of folklore surrounding the beginnings of the candy cane. Some say it was invented by priests in the 1400s, and was originally straight and solid-white in color. A popular legend claims that a choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral in Cologne, Germany, bent straight sugar sticks into the shape of shepherd's staffs, and handed them out to children at living nativity services on Christmas Eve in 1670. There is a belief that candy canes then spread from Germany to the rest of Europe, where they were handed out at other nativity plays, leading to their association with Christmas.

Source: Checkiday.com

This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: Today is: National Candy Cane Day