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Candy canes can be tracked back several hundred years. But like all legends of Christmas what is truth and what is reality is difficult to sort out.
The earliest known mention of candy canes and their origin comes from Cologne, France where they were supposedly born in a cathedral as a means to keep children quiet during church. The choirmaster, who had charge of many children selected to sing at special church events, was looking for a way to keep them quiet when they were not participating in the services. He could not give them chocolate or other obvious foods lest he be accused of being sacreligious. So he devised a simple white confection made of sugar that formed into a hard stick.
Variations of this story say that he bent the hard stick into a “j” shape, to give the candy some religious symbolism that he could teach to the children. Over the centuries, this thought has expanded so that candy canes symbolize everything from the blood of Christ in it’s red color to it’s hardness symbolizing the firm foundation of faith that Christ established. Some even go so far as to say that the candy cane is symbolic of the Shepherd’s crook, representing those lowly shepherds who came to worship the Christ-child in the manger of Bethlehem.
In reality, candy canes in general and peppermint candy in particular have long been a marketplace staple not only at Christmastime but year round. It had seen world-wide distribution long before it ever became associated with Christmas. Although the stories of the candy cane being an early-Christian reminder of the faith give it more of a romantic appeal, none of these stories are true. Candy canes are and always have been just candy.
So how did Christmas and candy canes become connected?
Two factors seem to have played a role:
In 1847, just as Christmas trees were really coming into fashion in the United States for the first time, a German-Swedish immigrant named August Imgard decorated a Christmas tree with candy canes in his Wooster, Ohio home. Evidently his creation had inspired others. This was in an era before lights and electricity. Many trees of that time were decorated with homemade novelties or dangerously illuminated with candles. The candy cane seemed to be an idea whose time had come in tree decorating.
Historical Christmas cards from that Victorian era show candy canes — always white in color — as being used to decorate trees. Later, candy canes of many colors were often made in local candy shops year round — with red and white ones being specially made and marketed during the Christmas season.
In the 1920s, a candymaker by the name of Bob McCormack mass produced and marketed red-and-white candy canes nationwide. And thus the real connection between candy canes and Christmas was born. No other confection — with a respectful nod here to those who make the books of Lifesavers — has a closer connection to Christmas than the candy cane.
