Dan O'Donnell

Dan O'Donnell

Common Sense Central is edited by WISN's Dan O'Donnell. Dan provides unique conservative commentary and analysis of stories that the mainstream media...Full Bio

 

The Forgotten History of Candy Canes

The first written reference to candy canes was in the mid-1860s, and they began to be associated with Christmas and hung on Christmas trees about a decade later, but according to legend, they're much older than that.

In 1670, the choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany was worried about children making too much noise during the living nativity performance at Christmas Eve mass, so he asked a local confectioner to make a candy for them to suck on and keep them quiet.

In order to justify sweets in church, though, he had the confectioner make the candy in the shape of the crooks the shepherds held when they visited the baby Jesus, and thus candy canes were born.

Click on the player below to listen to the complete series "The Forgotten History of Our Favorite Christmas Traditions" and be sure to subscribe!


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