Christmas Candies

 Christmas Candies

- jim young (rewritten from an article originally published in the 1990s)

“Sweet but twisted. Does that make me a candy cane?” - anon

I’ve become a grumpy old man. I know that and I’ve accepted it. Now it’s up to the rest of the world to accept it. And deal with it!

What makes me a grumpy old man? I don’t know and I don’t care. That’s one of the advantages of being a grumpy old man. I don’t have to explain things. That’s just the way it is – BECAUSE!

But things today aren’t like they used to be. Like Christmas Candies. 

Why can’t we find Christmas Candies like we used to have when we were children? I don’t eat Christmas Candies much anymore, but gosh darn it – I want them. It reminds me of Christmas when I was a child.

I spent six hours the other night looking for real Christmas Candies. I went shopping at 4:30 pm and was home by 6:00 pm – but it was six hours. I don’t know how the math works on that and I don’t care. Don’t argue with me about it. It was six hours I tell you!

You can’t just take any old candy and pretend it’s a Christmas candy either. That’s not right. But that’s what the stores try to do. It’s a conspiracy.

Jelly Beans are not Christmas Candies. They’re Easter Candies. I don’t care if you put just the red and green jelly beans in a bag and call them Christmas Candies. They’re still Easter Candies.

The same with Smarties. Just because you pick out all the blue and yellow and orange and all the other coloured Smarties and leave only the red and green Smarties and put them in a box with a child and a teddy bear on them; it doesn’t make them Christmas Candies. 

Hell – they’re not even Smarties anymore when you do that! If I want Smarties – I’ll buy Smarties – but only with the blue and yellow and orange and all the other coloured Smarties in them. 

Why would I want to buy just red and green Smarties? Especially when I don’t even want Smarties – I want Christmas Candies. You can’t trick me into buying Smarties when I want Christmas Candies. 

I didn’t get to be a grumpy old man by being stupid, you know.

And Chocolate Santas are not Christmas Candies either. They’re melted-down Easter bunnies that are remoulded into Santas and wrapped in coloured foil – but they’re NOT Christmas Candies! As hard as they are to open, they might as well be CDs.

So why are stores trying to make me buy melted down chocolate Easter Bunnies that are remoulded into Santas when all I want are Christmas Candies?

And by the way, real candy canes are red and white if you didn’t know. Candy canes today look like a rainbow with a tail on it. If you straightened the cane out and stuck it by a pyramid, today’s candy canes would look like they belonged on a Pink Floyd album cover.

I finally found a few real Christmas Candies even though I didn’t find all the Christmas Candies I wanted. 

But I’ll tell you this. I didn’t buy any Easter Candies and I didn’t buy any stupid box full of just red and green Smarties pretending to be Christmas Candies either. 

What’s this world coming to anyway?

Merry Christmas,

from a grumpy old man.

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