SaintNickHatch

Saint Nicholas Day. In parts of northern Europe, particularly the Low Countries and some German-speaking areas, St. Nicholas Day has remained a time when children are given special cookies, candies, and gifts. In many places, children leave letters for St. Nicholas and carrots or grass for his donkey or horse. In the morning, they find small presents under their pillows or in the shoes, stockings, or plates they have set out for him. Oranges and chocolate coins are common treats that represent St. Nicholas’s legendary rescue of three impoverished girls by paying their marriage dowries with gold. Candy canes, which have the shape of a bishop’s crosier, are also given.

Candy Canes. The first record of 'candy sticks' is in 1837 at an exhibition in Massachusetts, USA. They were straight white sugar sticks. A few years later the red stripes were added to the sugar sticks. The first time they were documented as being called 'candy canes' was in 1866. The first documented time candy canes were associated with Christmas was in 1874. Early recipes had them as simply 'sugar' flavored, while now they are often flavored with peppermint or wintergreen but can include other flavors such as chocolate and cherry. Candy canes did not achieve their iconic curved shape until the 1920s when Bob McCormack, from Georgia, USA, started making the straight canes for his friends and family. They became more and more popular and he started his own business called Bob's Candies. Bob McCormack's brother-in-law, Gregory Harding Keller, who was a Catholic priest, invented the 'Keller Machine' that turned the straight candy sticks into curved candy canes automatically!

A legend, that is a nice story often repeated but is not true, says that German a choirmaster, in 1670, was worried about the children sitting quietly all through the long Christmas nativity service. So he gave them something to eat to keep them quiet! As he wanted to remind them of Christmas, he made them into a 'J' shape like a shepherds crook, to remind them of the shepherds that visited the baby Jesus at the first Christmas.

Sources
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Saint-Nicholas-Day
https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/candycanes.shtml
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