# The history of Christmas sweets

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## Summary

British Christmas sweets run from Twelfth Day sweet jars and Tom Smith's crackers to candy canes, chocolate coins, sugar mice and the Chocolate Orange.

## Description

Sweets and Christmas have gone together in Britain for a long time. Some of today's Christmas treats have roots in Georgian and Victorian customs, and others are 20th century inventions.
Twelfth Day windows
Twelfth Day, 6 January, the last day of the Christmas season, was an occasion for sweets too. In 1825 the writer William Hone described confectioners polishing their tall glass jars for Twelfth Day, filled with peppermint drops, sugar sticks, hardbake, brandy balls and bullseyes: see the history of the sweet shop
The cracker
The Christmas cracker began as a way to sell sweets. The London confectioner Tom Smith sold sugared almonds wrapped in twists of paper, added love notes, and then a bang, and the Oxford English Dictionary records crackers being pulled from 1847. His son Walter later added the paper hats: see Tom Smith and the Christmas cracker
Victorian sugar toys
In the 18th century, metal moulds began to be used to make shaped sweets of clear boiled sugar, known as barley sugar or clear toy candy. By the 19th century these moulded sweets were a popular Victorian Christmas treat in Germany, England and parts of North America: see how is barley sugar made?
Candy canes
Straight peppermint sticks, white with coloured stripes, had a published recipe by 1844. The first known candy cane appears in a story of 1866, and by 1874 a magazine was linking candy canes with Christmas. A popular story that they began in Cologne in 1670 does not appear before the mid 20th century: see how are candy canes made?
On the tree and in the stocking
Chocolate coins are traditionally bought in Britain at Christmas, hung on the tree and put in children's stockings: see chocolate coinsSugar mice, little mice of boiled fondant with a string tail, are a traditional British Christmas sweet: see sugar mice
The chocolate orange
The 20th century added new sweets. Terry's of York launched the Chocolate Orange in 1932, and it was once estimated to be in a tenth of all British Christmas stockings; its marketing is heaviest around Christmas. For ideas for this year's stockings, see Christmas sweets and stocking fillers

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