With Thanksgiving over and our bellies full, it is officially Christmas season. Which means: twinkly lights, trees, eggnog, your grandma’s homemade peppermint bark — which you and all your cousins will fight over. It’s a season for giving and, in the words of Buddy the Elf, “Candy, candy canes, candy corn.”
According to Candystore.com’s rankings of the most popular Christmas candy in the U.S., much of the country prefers candy that you can get year-round instead of, you know, actual Christmas candy. The wholesaler predicts that American consumers will spend a whopping $1.93 billion on candy for the upcoming holiday, and, using a survey of 50,000 people, they broke down which candies each state prefers. Some of the most popular candies ranged from mini Reese’s cups to Skittles to Starburst. Some states preferred seasonal treats like candy canes, peppermint bark, or reindeer corn.
These rankings have raised so many questions, #1 being, “Skittles and Starburst are Christmas candy?” Also, “What the hell is reindeer corn?” Don’t get it twisted: We’re all for eating Skittles year-round, so long as we’re talking lime instead of green apple, but it screams more year-round-binge than jolly-St.-Nick.
But some states haven’t lost sight about what the holiday is all about: Sneaking mini candy canes off of your aunt’s Christmas tree until you spoil your dinner.
Source: CandyStore.com
What do we learn from this? Alabama is all about the reindeer corn, which, I have since learned, is a derivative of Halloween favorite, candy corn. (I am assuming reindeer corn also tastes like sweet candle wax.) Washington, Georgia, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania all rank candy canes as their number one choice for Christmas. Peppermint bark is the candy of choice for California, which, duh, because Ghirardelli, as well as Nevada, Kansas, and West Virginia.
But then there are outliers like Minnesota, whose favorite Christmas candy is…Jolly Ranchers. Minnesota, baby, what are you doing? You’re, like, the land of Christmas, and here you are sucking on the same candy they put out at doctor’s offices when they run out of the good stuff. Then again, this is 2017: home of upside down Christmas trees and ghoulish White House Christmas decorations. So, go on and enjoy your Jolly Ranchers and your, uh, pez. And happy holidays, ya filthy animals.
