Growing up, I loved all the Christmas traditions Mother worked hard to keep.  I brought many of them to my own children and it made our holiday season merry and bright.  But this post is about one in particular that is carried on to this day:  Christmas candy.

It is important to know that my parents were children during the Great Depression.  I guess they were poor.  Pretty much everyone in our town was, but the children didn’t seem to notice.  I always loved hearing about their happy childhoods: all the board games they played indoors and all the long-lost outdoor games — Red Rover, Hide-and-go-Seek, jacks, jump rope — and all the mischief they got into.

Apparently, sugar was cheap during the Depression, and this fostered the making of lots of candy in December.  Pecans could be gathered along country roadsides and there were also some black walnut trees, and peanuts.

I still have many of those old recipes, some usual, some not.

Aunt Bill’s Brown Candy.

Date loaf, which I did not like.

Divinity, which my Papa Harrison made with black walnuts. Nuts were cracked and “picked out” by hand. No electric mixer was involved.

Aunt Launa’s caramels, which had to be stirred for about an hour as  cream was added very slowly.

Fudge, which Daddy made without any silly ingredients like chocolate chips and Marshmallow cream.

Peanut brittle. You had to do something to the raw peanuts called “parching,” as the first step.

English toffee, a personal favorite.

The making and being together over pots on the stove in the kitchen was as sweet as the eating.  Then there was the business of cutting small squares of waxed paper and wrapping pieces of candy after which an assortment was often packed into those short, squatty coffee cans that had been saved throughout the year for gift-giving.

In my kitchen, my girls and I added meringues to the list which “cured” overnight in a turned-off oven. Always had to wait.