Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight Over Candy)

December 2, 2022 8:35 AM

But we will!

Candystore.com surveyed over 9K of their customers to ask them, "What are the worst Christmas candies?"*



*yes, it's apparent this is very North American so please add your country's lists if they exist

Before the fracas begins, I will say I agree with the Peeps and Reindeer Corn thing because those are clearly brazen attempts to nudge those respective candies out of their proper holidays.

posted by Kitteh (72 comments total)

I hate Christmas, but I quite like peppermint bark, cherry cordials and nougat.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:45 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I actually agree on most of these... chocolate orange in particular.

I used to hate the chocolate covered cherry cordial things, but now I've become indifferent to them.
posted by some loser at 8:46 AM on December 2, 2022

Oh, yeah, chocolate oranges are pretty good, too.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:48 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

They nailed the top three. (I haven't tried reindeer corn, but it's obviously terrible.)

Chocolate oranges are on my list of best christmas candy, though. Like, not in the same category as christmas baking, but still good. We get the Terry's kind here.

What I appreciated most was the concise image ranking them all right near the start!!!
posted by Acari at 8:55 AM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

Terry’s Mint chocolate oranges are superior to the citrus flavour.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:00 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

This is rather a bogus topic IMO as I associate Christmas with home-made baked goods, not any specific candy, certainly not chocolate oranges or hard candy like ribbons - the one exception being candy canes (and foil-wrapped Christmas balls).

I quite like peppermint bark

Yish, not me. It's like eating chocolate infused with broken glass.
posted by Rash at 9:01 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

This apparently was one of the judges' comments about those Lifesaver Storybook packages:

This says to me: I got you something from Walgreens when I went to buy adult diapers.

HAHAHA!

Oh, and peppermint bark is awesome, but I'm a peppermint fiend so I think I have a bias there. (I once joked to someone that if Altoids ever made an ice cream I'd love it - and then I tried making a batch of peppermint ice cream and accidentally put in too much peppermint extract, and thus effectively made my own Altoids ice cream. And yep, I loved it.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:09 AM on December 2, 2022 [10 favorites]

Peppermint bark seems like the outlier on this list--it's not especially old-timey (ribbon candy, Christmas nougat, cherry cordials...) or half-ass-last-minute (Life Savers book, chocolate orange (which in my mind is a stand-in for grocery-store-fancy (Ferraro Rocher, Dove, Russell Stover...) chocolate in general)).

Instead it's middlebrow and ubiquitous even though it's not always that good, but it's also maybe a little bit basic. Peppermint bark is like the pumpkin spice of Christmas.
posted by box at 9:10 AM on December 2, 2022

I've been getting a Terry's chocolate orange in my stocking from my mom for decades (along with a Toblerone), and I think it's probably worth noting that those are different than what's described in the article - Terry's is just orange-infused chocolate, rather than having a creme center, which sounds horrible. Aside from that, the only thing in the worst candy list that I'd even touch would be the cherry cordials, which aren't particular favorites or anything, more on the level of "eh, it's candy".

I may be somewhat spoiled growing up in SoCal where tradition is to have a 1 lb box of See's sitting around at all times.
posted by LionIndex at 9:11 AM on December 2, 2022 [6 favorites]

The quintessential Christmas candy for me is Chocolate Lace.
posted by emelenjr at 9:19 AM on December 2, 2022

That category should be named Cromwell because they make me want to cancel Christmas.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 9:20 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

This is the first I've heard of reindeer corn and I want to know, "Who is the sick fuck who invented reindeer corn?"
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:33 AM on December 2, 2022 [7 favorites]

When I was a child my parents would buy gorgeous Christmas ornaments made of pure spun sugar. Multicolored and shiny. Works of art, actually. My brother and I would wait until the tree was taken down. And eat them. Pure sugar. How am I alive today?
posted by Splunge at 9:36 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Terry’s Mint chocolate oranges are superior to the citrus flavour.

Wholeheartedly agree, though it's been a while since I've seen them in the wild. Years back Ocean State Job Lot had a ton of them during the summer, and it was awesome.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:39 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

You gotta get the right cherry cordials. Trader Joe's has some good ones. Otherwise, I agree with Rash above, I don't really associate candy with Christmas, except candy canes, which are great as stir sticks for hot cocoa, but otherwise mid.

And I have never seen a chocolate orange with any kind of filling. That's nasty. Everyone knows the fruit nougat candies are the worst part of any assortment.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:40 AM on December 2, 2022

>> fruit nougat candies are the worst

Of course they are, that's why you should give them all to me.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:41 AM on December 2, 2022 [8 favorites]

I really like ribbon candy and old fashioned hard candy mix. Partly it's nostalgia, but really I just like basic sugar candy and good non-chocolate candy is hard to find. If you get good versions of those two they are very tasty.

LifeSavers story books are almost 100% nostalgia for me. They have been in stockings at my parents house for decades. They were never a bought at Walgreens last minute thing and LifeSavers are good, so what's the problem?

The top 3 though - spot on. Mrs. Wreckage does genuinely like (good quality) cherry cordials but they're not for me. I also hadn't ever seen reindeer corn, but it looks like candy corn somehow made even worse so that can't be good.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 9:45 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Another fan of Terry's Chocolate Oranges here - yeah accept no alternatives as all others are terrible. I was always indifferent to candy canes until I stumbled upon King Leo Soft Peppermint Sticks which are VASTLY superior. Cherry Cordials have always been terrible in whatever version you might encounter. Ribbon Candy and Old School Hard Candy I have a fondness for as no trip to Grandma's would be without it but I recognise it is strictly nostalgia. We have a polarising candy here in Canada we eat usually at Christmas - Chicken Bones.
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:49 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Holy cow, chocolate oranges and peppermint bark are my two favorite holiday candies. When they finally show up at Trader Joes I buy around half a dozen of each and stick them in the freezer so they can last through the year. How do I get these people to send theirs to me?

I am bewildered.
posted by Mchelly at 9:50 AM on December 2, 2022 [5 favorites]

Oh wait, the Hershey's kiss Christmas commercial is sort of iconic, so maybe you can count Kisses as a Christmas candy. Awful, but less-awful than whatever reindeer corn is.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:51 AM on December 2, 2022

Seriously, there is a final slice of chocolate orange wrapped in the last of its wrapper on the desk next to my laptop as I'm typing this that I've been staring at all morning because I've been forcing myself to save it because I've eaten too many already this week and I need to make them last. I may have to eat it now out of spite. Yeah, that's why.
posted by Mchelly at 9:53 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Mint chocolate oranges

What on earth is this combination of words?
posted by slogger at 10:09 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

What the fuck, who doesn't like a chocolate orange? Non-peppermint candy canes are the only ones edible, who the hell wants to eat toothpaste that leaves your mouth feeling dirty? Lifesavers with more chances at only good flavours, what's the issue?

Cherry cordials I'll give em, I like em but they're super gross.
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:11 AM on December 2, 2022

Ribbon candy previously on MeFi. Not so much something I like as something that brings back a feeling of nostalgia.
posted by TedW at 10:16 AM on December 2, 2022

Who is the sick fuck who invented reindeer corn?

My money is on "some poor schlub at the candy corn factory whose boss hollered at him to think of some way they could be relevant after Halloween."

I don't really associate candy with Christmas

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? There's loads of Christmas candy. If nothing else, it made for a great way to fill in the gaps in a Christmas stocking.

....When I was a kid, my aunt hosted all our family Christmases (that set of aunt/uncle/cousins lived in a house with nine bedrooms, all with en suite bathrooms, and they were ten minutes' drive from Grandma and Grandpa so everyone coming from out of town just crashed there). When I was about eight Aunt Mary discovered those chocolate coffee beans - not the ones that are actual coffee beans covered in chocolate, more like chocolate morsels with a faint mocha flavor and molded to look like little coffee beans. We loved those.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:20 AM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

I've been getting a Terry's chocolate orange in my stocking from my mom for decades

Me too, and I think it was a Christmas tradition from my Mom's parents, so I am utterly baffled by the "Where the F did they come from?" comment in the article.
posted by creepygirl at 10:21 AM on December 2, 2022

Cherry cordials I'll give em, I like em but they're super gross.

Has to be the right kind. Syrupy interior, fine - I'll take two! But if there's any opaque white in that filling, I pass, you can have mine.
posted by Rash at 10:24 AM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

Me too, and I think it was a Christmas tradition from my Mom's parents, so I am utterly baffled by the "Where the F did they come from?"

How you learn your family are Anglophiles…

In my case, I started getting them from my grandmother's neighbor, who was English, and actually named Terry.
posted by LionIndex at 10:33 AM on December 2, 2022

Dollarama gets in the alcohol laced chocolate trays for Christmas. They're not great but they're not bad for the price, either. Irish Cream, Cherry, and Brandy flavours.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:33 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Are chocolate liquor bottles a Christmas thing? I guess they are, maybe? I guess that's another one I like.
posted by uncleozzy at 10:37 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Trader Joe's gets cordial cherries with good cherries and real booze inside, those are the only way to go. Chocolate oranges have been a thing forever and they're good (I've always had them with solid chocolate, no cream filling, so mileage may vary). I always got one of those Lifesaver books in my stocking so I'm nostalgic for them.
posted by Daily Alice at 10:47 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Something weird about Americans - a dislike of both chocolates with fruit in them and chocolates with praline in them. (Also I think a dislike of chewy candies generally.) Like, you go to northern or western Europe and it's all praline. You go to central or eastern Europe and there are lots of fruit and chocolate combos. In the United States, your choice for praline is pretty much the less popular of Aldi's Christmas stuff and imported cherry Milka bars. Why is this? What is the disconnect? Is it that we consider candy basically childish and so even when we eat candy as adults it has to be a continuation of kids' candy so it's all sour-sugar mixes or chocolate with caramel? Is it because we have way more advanced food marketing research teams than in Europe so it's all proprietary Super Sour Goji Berry Marshmallows?

Chocolate oranges are only bad if the chocolate itself is cheap and tastes like oil solids.

I wish I had some fruit nougat.
posted by Frowner at 10:48 AM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

I wish I had some fruit nougat.

That just landed in my head musically. Oh damn, if only Meatloaf were still alive. That could have been his Christmas anthem.

I am saying this sincerely with a deep and shameful love for Meatloaf power ballads.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:05 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Okay, take that my fellow Americans, I just ordered some nougat online. Plus my annual tin of Quality Street. And I bought chocolate cordials only last week. (For a widely hated candy, there certainly are a lot of them on display in Target, Aldi and Cub, and I expect that they have upmarket ones at the upmarket grocery.)
posted by Frowner at 11:14 AM on December 2, 2022

Dollarama gets in the alcohol laced chocolate trays for Christmas. They're not great but they're not bad for the price, either. Irish Cream, Cherry, and Brandy flavours.

I never used to like them, but I've developed a fondness for the dark chocolate Brandy beans. Which is convenient I suppose, because I seem to end up with at least one box of them every year at Christmas despite never having openly expressed a fondness for them.
posted by some loser at 11:34 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Those seasonal green and red M&Ms really spike the holiday nostalgia meter for me, especially if they're in a dish set out on a table.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:05 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

My father-in-law was a diehard cherry cordial fan, and his delight when we upped the game and got really good ones (sourced here on Metafilter, actually), was absolutely wonderful. There are good ones out there, but the ones from the drugstore are going to be not so hot.
posted by PussKillian at 12:07 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

I am also on Team Baked Goods at Xmas.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:08 PM on December 2, 2022

If we're talking Euro nougat, I have a fondness for Kraš' Bajadera.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:21 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I gotta say peppermint bark can go either way. With quality dark chocolate and thin (dry) crispy bits of peppermint it's quite good.

And I would still pick the old-fashioned hard candy, just to annoy my holiday guests with incessant teeth-noises.
posted by credulous at 1:44 PM on December 2, 2022

We did have some excellent Hungarian Christmas candy along while in Toronto. Fig jelly filling with a chocolate coating.

Our cool 78 y/o German-Canadian ex-fashion model friend announced, "We're all having Advocaat!" so I had a bit of that with it and it was game-changing.

(I'm still essentially not drinking, keeping with the NA beers, but little old lady booze one-offs don't count.)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:50 PM on December 2, 2022

Christmas candy is old fashioned hard candy. Everything else is iconoclastic. (I think the Brits call them boiled sweets.)
posted by charlesminus at 1:54 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm sitting here reading the article and occasionally taking a nougat out of the bag here on my desk. These look nothing like the ones in the article, but they do, I guess, match the description of a "squishy Christmas tree poker chip" vaguely.

In recent years, I've noticed that they expanded from just having the traditional peppermint kind and have added cinnamon and "wintergreen" to the mix. I like 'em! The author of the article has bad opinions and should feel bad.
posted by Ipsifendus at 2:03 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I rather like the Ghirardelli Assorted Christmas Squares. Their version of peppermint bark is pretty good. And the egg nog ones.
posted by Splunge at 2:53 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

The article, regarding chocolate oranges:

> I had honestly never even heard of these before last year.

and also:

This is a foreign candy trying to make a market in the US.

I guess this is another one of those subtle reminders that Canada and Canadian culture are actually quite different from the US, despite being neighbours and seeming to have a lot in common.

I find it absolutely astounding the chocolate oranges, at least according to the author of the article are some sort of new thing.
posted by asnider at 2:53 PM on December 2, 2022 [4 favorites]

The real worst Christmas candy is Moritz Icy Squares, which are basically just coconut oil with cheap cocoa mixed in. Seriously, the first ingredient is coconut oil, which is what gives them their "melty" quality. They're fucking gross and barely taste like chocolate.
posted by asnider at 2:58 PM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

Chocolate oranges absolutely are not a new thing in the US, at least parts of it. My mother was able to find them in Arizona in the 1980s, which was not exactly a hotbed for Anglophiles. She was a working mom who didn't have time to shop at fancy import stores, so they must have come from one of the grocery stores she shopped at.

This AskAnAmerican Reddit thread from 5 years ago seems about equally divided between "never heard of them" and "I get them every year" and "jeez, they're at Walmart and Target, of course we have them."
posted by creepygirl at 3:07 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

I never had chocolate oranges but growing up in Buffalo NY I did have sponge candy, which comes coated in your choice of milk, dark, or orange chocolate. (In fact when I was in high school I worked at one of the fine sponge candy purveyors.) I really like orange chocolate but haven't had it since I moved away - maybe I should try to source an orange!

I think of sponge candy as a holiday treat (we always bought some to have out for guests to nosh on when we hosted Christmas Eve dinner). The red and green M&Ms in the candy cane shaped tube are a nostalgic treat for me too. Cherry cordials are awesome.

I love candy corn but reindeer corn offends me. Half the reason it tastes good is you only get it once a year; forcing it into a year-round treat ruins the magic.
posted by misskaz at 3:15 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

You haven't lived until you've been visiting the Finnish side of the family for Christmas as a 10 year old and swiped a couple of Finlandia vodka-filled chocolates -- and discovered that it's just a hollow chocolate filled with...straight vodka.

Of course, it was too late because you'd already opened a couple and popped them in your mouth all at once.

Fazer now makes a "Vodkamix" line that are still vodka-filled chocolates, but they appear to be a mix of fruit flavours along with "original," which I assume is "just vodka."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:25 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Chocolate oranges are great. First, chocolate and orange is a great combination. Second, you have to whack the orange (still in its shiny foil) with a hammer to detach the segments: WHAM! Who doesn't like that?

My grandmother was Russian and gave us the good kind of cherry cordials filled with cognac. Those are the kind to have.
posted by acrasis at 3:36 PM on December 2, 2022 [5 favorites]

My favorite christmas candies are the ones my wife makes. There are now umpteen-umpteen pounds of good dark chocolate in our pantry waiting to be melted down and used in various recipes. She starts this weekend.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:57 PM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

Thorzad: I have bookmarked about 10 different fudge recipes myself as well for much the same reason. (I cheat and do the thing where you melt chocolate chips in the microwave with evaporated milk because nine times out of ten I end up eating most of it and I'm not fussy.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:09 PM on December 2, 2022

Ribbon candy used to cut up my tongue so badly I’d notice blood on napkins, but that didn’t stop me from eating it.

The worst Christmas candy that showed up at our house was salt water taffy, followed closely by those formed pastel cremes coated with granulated sugar that I don’t remember the name of.

My parents were sort of supreme candy indulgers for reasons I wish I’d got around to asking them about, and my wrapped Christmas presents regularly included a pound of Russell Stover, Whitman's, and a third brand I can’t remember, but I don’t think was See's, plus three books of Lifesavers with different themes, all kinds of Cadbury rolls and bars, a bunch of Nestle's, big boxes of Dots, bags of watermelon and green apple Jolly Ranchers (my favorites), and a bunch of other stuff that made my partner mad whenever I made the mistake of talking about it.
posted by jamjam at 4:14 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've never seen Lifesaver Storybooks before. I never buy Lifesavers (other than at the airport) so maybe I've been oblivious; are they widely known?

Similarly: has anyone ever actually seen a Christmas gumdrop tree in the wild?

The candy I actually eat at Christmas is aplets and cotlets, made by my mother-in-law. That's got to be very very regional.
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:17 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

I forgot about bags of lemon drops and orange slices. I loved orange slices.
posted by jamjam at 4:21 PM on December 2, 2022

Also... Along with my yearly allocation of a Terry's Orange in my stocking would be a small box of Toffifee and if my Scottish granny had gone home to Edinburgh that year we'd all get a box of Ross's Edinburgh Rock. Christmas isn't Christmas without them.
posted by Ashwagandha at 4:36 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

I am an American Jew, and even I am familiar with chocolate oranges for Christmas. Perhaps, as has been mentioned above, it's a USAian geography thing?

We have our own issues with Hanukkah gelt, which tends to be made out of just the worst, waxiest chocolate ever. It is hard to make me dislike a chocolate experience, and yet.
posted by thomas j wise at 4:58 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

I am surprised gold foil wrapped chocolate coins haven’t shown up in this discussion. Like many contentious food items they are the right mix of weird, while some are only enjoy the ones made of good chocolate others enjoy their traditional waxy rubbish. And you can’t tell the difference until it’s in your mouth so it’s impossible for folks in either group to be happy.

I get my coins at Trader Joe’s, and this year they are good again. Last 2 years- yetch. Their little advent calendars have been straight trash for years now. As noted upthread, the chocolate oranges from TJs are always very acceptable.
posted by zenon at 7:07 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Of all holiday-specific candies, Christmas candies are the least worst.
posted by sjswitzer at 7:42 PM on December 2, 2022

I have a hard time even *finding* Christmas candy for my kids advent calendar these days (without going online).

I usually end up with chocolate wrapped like presents or those Christmas-tree poker chip nougat things. Or those shitty gold coins zenon mentions.

Hammonds Candy Coal is pretty good (cinnamon flavored).

Nerds Holiday Rope is good too.

Miniature candy canes are OK, but everything else is hot garbage.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:29 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I love Red Vines* and gingerbread, but I will not be buying these Gingerbread Red Vines I saw at the grocery story last week.


*you want a candy fight over red licorice? Red Vines are superior to Twizzlers. Stale Red Vines are superior to fresh when consumed in the movie theater!
posted by vespabelle at 8:43 AM on December 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Yeah Terry’s chocolate oranges are actually the #1 *best* Christmas candy, although I think of chocolate and candy as different . I do mostly like cookies and baked goods, but I’m 53 and in the US and still look forward to the stocking Choco orange every year.

However, now that I (spoiler) am the one putting them there, crucial advice: make sure that the fireplace is not used between filling and opening the stockings. A couple of years ago we all got fused baseball-sized chocoballs and it’s not the same as the nice whacked-apart slices.
posted by caviar2d2 at 9:13 AM on December 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

I am out on some holiday errands at the moment, and it has been miserable - it is a rainy day, I dragged myself to the gym and I am wiped, the kerchief I am wearing keeps undoing g itself and exposing my icky hair, and we had some gusts of wind that killed my umbrella.

One of my errands was to pick some stuff up at Trader Joe's - and I have decided that I am going to splurge and add ALL THE CANDY to the list. Even peppermint bark.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:37 AM on December 3, 2022 [4 favorites]

are they widely known?

I received one in a holiday gift exchange 'way back in elementary school and it's my observation now that's where you'll encounter Lifesaver Books most often. It's not a gift anybody actually requests -‌- if I wanted Lifesavers (which I haven't, sorry hard candies, no use for you since the pre-diabetes diagnosis) I'd buy a single roll at the drugstore. (Wint-O-Green, naturally, for the triboluminescence.) But those 'Storybooks' are all too much.

The only Christmas candy I was raised to expect was chocolate. Kisses in the stocking and/or what's become a required favorite among my siblings, those foil-wrapped chocolate balls. The ones made by See's are fine (and dark available also) but expensive. The good ones used to be available all over via Russell Stover but they seem to have eliminated that line a while ago. My little brother tracked down the source though, and he buys 'em in bulk, from Madelaine in Rockaway Beach, L.I. We call these Christmas balls units.
posted by Rash at 12:20 PM on December 3, 2022

Also in the "cannot deal with chocolate orange" camp but primarily because orange flavoured anything just tastes like it was infused with baby aspirin to me. Even the naturally flavoured stuff. Like eating St Joseph's by the fistful.

I dont think it's the worst, though. That honor belongs to the milk chocolate santas wrapped with the world's thinnest foil. Like they're made from the chocolate deemed too waxy and flavourless for Cadbury eggs. Gross.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 1:41 PM on December 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Similarly: has anyone ever actually seen a Christmas gumdrop tree in the wild?

Yes! This is our beloved family tradition, the sugar sparkles in the light and it is beautiful. We use spice drops in my family, but apparently not everyone is into clove, mint, licorice, etc. I have to refresh the branches several times over the Christmas season.
posted by chocotaco at 3:45 PM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Chocolate oranges are great, but you've got to hunt down the ones made in the UK. The ones made for the Canadian market are ok in a pinch, but not as creamy.

Also, the eastern Canadian classic, chicken bone candy needs to be on this list! It's basically an old fashioned cinnamon flavoured hard candy, with a splinter of third rate chocolate on the middle. Edible for nostalgia reasons only.
posted by peppermind at 5:32 PM on December 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

I have a not necessarily reliable memory of three different Lifesaver book themes: various mints, including clove, which I never saw in stores; fruit flavors; and kind of a leftover category which included butterscotch, maybe butter rum as well, and root beer, which was another flavor I never saw in stores — and that reminds me of horehound lozenges, which were another stocking stuffer.
posted by jamjam at 6:30 PM on December 3, 2022

Everyone in here talking about stupid christmas candy like you didn't even notice the Ramones reference in the post title. I don't get you people at all.
posted by evilDoug at 8:37 PM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

You can pry my old-fashioned hard candy mix out of my cold, dead jaws. It tastes like Grandma’s house and the pictures in the cut rock are pretty.

I don’t think I’d recognize a Christmas stocking without a Life Savers story book and at least one Chapstik in it.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:27 AM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

Americans who live vaguely close to a large-ish metropolis just need to hit up your nearest World Market, where pretty much all the above non-US items can be obtained during the month of December.

However the best peppermint bark is Williams-Sonoma's. Dark chocolate, nice bits of peppermint... mmm. Pre-COVID they'd leave a big sample thing of it out in the store during holiday times and it was the best shopper's boost.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:50 AM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've never seen Lifesaver Storybooks before. I never buy Lifesavers (other than at the airport) so maybe I've been oblivious; are they widely known?

They're very much a Christmas-time only thing, but at least up here the the great cold north, they're pretty common in childrens' Christmas stockings.
posted by asnider at 8:58 AM on December 7, 2022