Christmas is a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Praise Jesus!
It's also a time when we exchange gifts and gather around the table with family and reminisce about days gone by.

The other day a group of us were gathered together in church discussing our favorite treats. It was hilarious when we thought about the stuff we used to eat as children.
I wrote an article about a year ago on this very subject and promised a few that I would share it. So here it is. Written October 2004

Monday, October 25, 2004

KILLER CANDY- By Debra Roman

Halloween is my least favorite holiday. Not only does it conjure up evil spirits but it conjures up childhood memories of killer candy.
I am not talking about those urban legends of people handing out poisonous candy. I'm talking about the stuff our parents allowed us to consume. Pixie stix is a perfect example of dangerous sweets. Colored sugar that's all it was. I would eat so much of it that the tip of my toungue would burn. The stix came in all sorts of toxic colors, some were even neon. Why are they dangerous? If you swallowed it straight from the straw you would chance choking on powder that was coming down too quickly leaving one with a powdery cough. Sometimes you would share some with your friends by pouring some powder on your hand and inviting them to lick it off. Gross! The good people at Pixie stix started to feel sorry for the little ones who just weren't getting enough of the sugary delight. So hey! why not make them bigger? I'm not talking a notch up from the 6 inch long and 1/2 a centimeter wide stix increasing to maybe 8 inches and a whole centimeter wide. No! the Pixies wanted more. So the tots get a 2 ft long 1/2 inch wide plastic tube of the sugary substance! Our moms, dads and grandparents would quickly buy this stuff to please us. What were they thinking? Oh it doesn't stop there. What about candy necklaces and bracelets and rings. Bacteria you can wear. Remember how we would share the candy necklace with friends without actually taking it off our necks but with a gentle pull of the elastic we would invite our closest and dearest playmates to suck a piece or two of candy off of our necks and return the salivated cord to it's rightful place of adornment. Wet necks! Wet hands and wet fingers.
Then there were those wax filled tubes with some mysterious liquid. We will be glowing in the dark in about 5 years, you'll see. Let's talk about the rock hard bubble gum in packs of baseball cards which if not carefully placed in your mouth is extremely perilous. The gum placed sideways and chomped down quickly can cause the roof of your mouth to tear. What about the dots of candy on a roll of receipt paper? Don't even get me started on red M&M's.
I'm wondering when exactly did the word recall come in to use because hey! we could have used it then. Let me remind you of the huge chocolate ball with a surprise toy inside that was exposed just a few years back. You could hear the gasps of appall by parents throughout the country "What were they thinking by putting a toy in a giant ball of candy (size of a jaw breaker. hmmm.... jawbreakers, that's self explanatory)", anyway, we could have used those recallers back in the day. Killer Candy it's a wonder any of us survived to tell about it. You can tell your grandchildren "Why... back in my day, you were brave if you ate candy. It was life risking, harmful, burned and cut ya and there was always the risk of bacterial infection when candy was shared but we ate it and you know what we liked it!"