Candy canes are always a delicious treat, but they’re especially good during Christmas time. We use them as gifts, to make other candies, and even as decorations on our Christmas trees. Everyone knows all candy canes come from the North Pole where they’re grown in Santa’s garden. A less known fact is that snowmen come from the North Pole too. This is their story.
Santa Claus developed a taste for peppermint discs when he was just a little boy. One day, while working outside his workshop, the jolly elf dropped a peppermint disc in the snow. He noticed it’d gotten dirty when it fell, so he opened another and left the dirty candy to be picked up later. Soon after, one of the elves came outside to tell Santa Mrs. Claus needed his help. He hurriedly went inside to see what was the matter. Santa had forgotten the peppermint disc.
A couple of days went by before Santa remembered the dropped candy. He went outside to retrieve his sweet debris but, to his surprise, the peppermint disc was gone. In its place was a small candy cane, growing from the snow. Santa picked the candy cane. What he found was the candy cane growing out of his dropped peppermint disc.
“Ho, ho, ho! Peppermint discs are candy cane seeds?” exclaimed Santa. “This is wonderful. The children will be so excited!”
Santa gathered a few elves to help him plant rows and rows of peppermint discs. He was starting a candy cane garden, right beside his workshop. The children will be excited, indeed. It only took a few weeks for old jelly belly to learn the ins and outs of candy cane gardening. It takes four days to grow a peppermint disc into a small candy cane, seven to grow it into a full-size candy cane, and a whole two weeks to grow it into a giant candy cane.
Santa also discovered that he, the elves, his reindeer, and the children weren’t the only ones who loved the sweet, minty treat. The snowbirds love candy canes too!
Santa thought “What will I do to protect the striped treats?”
Then, it came to him. Santa gathered his gardening helper elves and they began making snowballs. Whenever a snowbird came in to steal the candy canes, the elves would scare the birds away by throwing a snowball.
It didn’t take long for Santa to realize this was far too time consuming, and a waste of valuable elf resources. He noticed, when the snowballs hit the side of a hill, they would roll down and get bigger along the way. That’s when the light went off above his head. His idea was brighter than Rudolph’s nose!
Once again, Santa gathered his gardening helper elves, and again they made snowballs. This time, however, they rolled the snowballs in the snow to make them big. When Santa was satisfied they’d made enough snowballs in varying sizes he began to stack them.
“We’ll make them three balls tall!” he told the elves.
Then, with coal, buttons, and twigs, he gave the snowmen faces and arms. “A few of these should do the job nicely.” he said to himself. With the
elves help, he arranged the snowmen, every few yards apart, around the garden. When the snowbirds came back to steal the candy canes, they
saw the snowmen and, afraid the snowmen would throw snowballs, they flew away; without candy.
And, that’s how the first snowmen were made. At least, that’s the way I heard it.
