The Candy Cane has Religious Beginnings - Origin of the Candy Cane

Candy Canes with their characteristic red swirled stripes of today

Back in the early 17th century in Cologne, Germany, a local church priest had a hard time with children sitting quietly during services on Christmas Eve.  Growing frustrated, he came up with the idea of giving them candy to appease them during the ceremony.  To make the candy more fitting for the holiday, the priest had the local candy maker put a bend at the end of the usual straight white sweet sticks of candy which made it resemble a shepherd's staff.  This would correspond with the story of the shepherds who visited the baby Jesus after he was born.

Original candy canes where white until stripes and peppermint flavoring where added in the late 1800s.

This idea caught on and spread all over Europe over the ages and then, the world.  In the late 1800s, peppermint flavoring was introduced as well as the concept of adding a red stripe which was quickly becoming a traditional color of Christmas which represented the blood that was shed by Jesus when he was crucified.

In the early 1900s, candy canes started to become mass produced.

In the early 1900s following the industrial revolution in America, candy canes as we know them, began to be mass produced.  Today it is still customary for some organizations to hand candy canes out to young children at Christmas time.

Today, in addition to the traditional red and white striped canes, they available in a variety of colors and flavors

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The Origin of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was Celebrated by Native Americans Before the Pilgrims Ever Landed and Today There Exists an Un-Thanksgiving Day

We all celebrate Thanksgiving in North America with turkey, gravy and all the trimmings.  This Thanksgiving tradition dates back to the "first" official celebration at Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621.  However, these European settlers did not necessarily start the tradition.

The Wampanoag tribe helped the Pilgrims survive their first years at Plymouth

After battling starvation and disease, the pilgrims who landed at Plymouth were doomed.  However, the local natives, the Wampanoag tribe, helped them learn how to grow corn and live off of the land by fishing and harvesting the local bounty.  After surviving the year, they decided to follow the custom of harvest celebrations in Europe combined with a fall harvest celebration that the Native Americans celebrated as well.  The Wampanoag tribe joined the Pilgrim's in their harvest celebration which they called Thanksgiving.  The celebration included turkey because they were birds that were plentiful in the northeastern part of America and they were easy to hunt.  They also ate various types of seafood that they learned to harvest from the ocean.

The turkey became the unfortunate staple of Thanksgiving Day dinners in America simply because they were readily available in the days during the first Thanksgiving celebrations

The Thanksgiving fall feast was not a regular tradition however.  Until the settlers were well established, regular Thanksgiving celebrations did not occur until the middle of the 17th century. When the United States was first formed in the 18th century, states developed legislation declaring Thanksgiving an annual celebration, however, they celebrated it on different dates. Followed almost a century later a Presidential declaration for the Nation by Abraham Lincoln made the final Thursday in November the national holiday of Thanksgiving.  It was not until 1941 that legislation was put in place making Thanksgiving the 4th Thursday every November.

The first Thanksgiving celebration in Plymouth, Massachusetts

Thanksgiving began as a typical harvest festival and to give thanks for survival

Believe it or not, unknown to many, there exists an Un-Thanksgiving Day which is held on Alcatraz Island in California.  Some refer to it as The Indigenous Peoples Sunrise Ceremony.  This is held by Native Americans and other indiginous tribes of the western hemisphere to celebrate their survival of the European overtaking of thier lands on this side of the world.  Thousands attend each year and celebrations usually consist of song and dance.

Natives celebrate Un-Thanksgiving Day or The Indigenous Peoples Sunrise Ceremony on Alcatraz Island, California

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The Origin and History of Halloween
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The Origin of St. Patrick's Day