Holidays Dominated by Candy These Days

With Easter having just come and gone, there’s something about holidays I don’t really understand. Why do most of them involve candy? Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day and Halloween are prime examples. For whatever reason people feel led to give each other a bunch of candy on those occasions. Candy canes for Christmas, crème filled eggs for Easter, chocolate on Valentine’s Day, and every imaginable sugar sweet known to mankind on Halloween. It’s like we can’t figure out what we should give each other so we always fall back into the candy safety net. Misunderstand me not. I’m not anti-candy. I enjoy a good Reese’s every once in a while myself, but I just can’t figure out why candy dominates most holidays. And it’s getting worse. Nowadays my kids think they are owed a dessert after every meal. Like clockwork each night they ask Mom the same thing- “What’s for dessert?” And they won’t even count yogurt as a treat. Too healthy to be a dessert, they claim. And the one Stroupe kid who Mom still packs a lunch for requests a sweet snack every day. And he gets it. (He’s a good kid and doesn’t ask for a whole lot). This has led to an interesting development in our home. All about being a fine mother, Mom has a stash of candy she keeps for the youngest Stroupe’s daily lunchbox. The challenge is keeping the other Stroupes from invading the secret supply. Specifically there is one raider in our home who reigns supreme. He’s responsible for approximately 90% of all candy swiping incidents. No, it is not me. I won’t mention names but he is the oldest child and he’s the tallest human being in our house so you can’t hide things above eye level like we used to when he was in elementary school. This child of mine can sniff out sweets with the best of them. I think he could be the dog in a K-9 unit someday if sugar ever becomes illegal. Mom has attempted to hide her stash in cabinets with the blender, the toaster, the ice cream maker, the cooking pots, and the dinner plates. She’s tried the bedroom closet shelves and the bathroom linen closet without success. All she finds later is empty wrappers. (Yes, he leaves the wrappers as evidence, like he’s proud of it or something.) She recently shoved an empty box of former Cadbury eggs in front of me and announced, “He’s done it again.” I have an idea we haven’t tried yet but we may consider. Stick a couple of bags of M and M’s in the pouches of his English notebook and see how long they last. I’d give them a fighting chance in there. At any rate, sweets never remotely approach their expiration dates in our house. So when my youngest two boys returned home from a trip with their grandparents recently, I was pleased but anxious when they presented me with a box of creamy delicious Cow Tales to enjoy at my leisure. I decided on a new strategy. I left them in plain view on the desk where my laptop rests. Then I posted a little sign on the box that reads, “Touch these and I’ll write about you in the paper.” So far, so good.