The Holidays Belong To Candy

Nearly every holiday involves candy. Just ask the poor souls at Reese’s who have to contort peanut butter cups into a thousand festive shapes like they’re balloon animals. But not all holidays are created equal. Three of them stand out on the candy calendar: Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and Easter. (No disrespect to candy canes or gelt.)

Trick Treat or Treat. If you’re celebrating Halloween, candy’s a part of the picture. Every October, Americans spend billions on the sweet stuff, and the most popular activity on the big day is handing out candy. But that’s a relatively new phenomenon. According to the Sugar Association trade group:

• Modern trick-or-treating didn’t really take off in the US until the late 1940s.
• Even then, children would frequently get things like cookies, coins, and toys.
• Wrapped candy became popular in subsequent decades due to (mostly unfounded) concerns about poisoning.

Powered by hugs and kisses: This Valentine’s Day, 56% of US consumers were projected to buy candy, outpacing other popular gifts like greeting cards and flowers, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Prosper Insights & Analytics. There’s no question that innovation in confectionery has made the holiday what it is today:

• Richard Cadbury, of chocolate egg fame, popularized heart-shaped chocolate boxes in the 1860s, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
• Milton Hershey’s Kisses hit the market in 1907.
• Candy hearts that said “Be Mine” and “Kiss Me” entered the conversation in 1902, per History.com.

Basket case: Candy is also the most popular Easter purchase category, with Americans spending $3.3 billion on Peeps and other themed treats, according to the NRF. There’s plenty of Easter-themed fare to choose from, like chocolate bunnies, chocolate eggs, and marshmallow Peeps, which, in most states, were the most beloved Easter treat last year, according to a USA Today analysis of Google search data. Just try not to eat any plastic grass this year.—BC