I spend hours each holiday season in the candy aisles at Target choosing the perfect candy canes to decorate my Christmas tree.  Until my niece and nephew moved to town, the only requirement was aesthetic ― the appropriate color scheme to match my theme of the year.  Nowadays the canes must not only enhance the appearance of the tree but also…taste good (read: not like mint ― bo-ring).

To save you the trouble, I’ve eyed and licked and sucked and crunched the best of the cane selection on your local Target shelves this holiday season.  Here’s my report:

JOLLY RANCHER:  “Bold fruit Smoothie flavors.”  I’m not sure how “Smoothie” is relevant to the flavor of a candy cane — I guess the manufacturer is trying to give them a nutritious bent.  The 11 grams of sugar and lack of any vitamins or minerals beget this attempt, but never mind, let’s get to the important stuff.  Uncreative appearance, simply a classic candy-cane stripe, with white and juicy-fruit colors winding down the cane.  And the watermelon cane could be deceiving, its green, red, and white stripes suggesting to an unsuspecting candy-cane swiper that it’s mint-flavored (kind of like thinking you’re about to drink water when the cup is filled with milk).  But if you’re a Jolly Rancher fan, the flavor is true to the days of the Stix.  And the “bold fruit” flavors are bold indeed:  We have the always sassy strawberry, the mixed berry (blunt as ever, even unleashing a curse word here and there), and the cheeky never-taste-like-the-real-thing-but-still-the-best-flavor-in-the-bunch-short-of-green-apple watermelon. 

Jolly Rancher Candy Canes

NOW AND LATER:  What seventies kid didn’t love these teeth-breaking pucker-inducing “taffies” wrapped with wax paper like a little present?  That sour apple I mentioned?  Present.  Watermelon, too.  And grape and strawberry.  In short, the rulers of the flavor world (no boring orange in sight).  Pretty, too — rich reds, greens, purples, and pinks with a dainty stripe to offset the color splash.  Not to mention, 10 fewer calories per cane than the nutrition-touting Jolly Rancher.  And as for the texture…soft and crunchy at the same time, kind of like the real thing.  Now and Later, indeed.

Now and Later Candy Canes

SOUR PATCH:  (Pucker.)  (Eyes bulging.)  (Woo-eeee!)  I was suspicious of these canes given the best part of the real Sour Patches (my number-one favorite candy) is the soft sweet chew waiting beneath the shocking sugar coating.  Could hard candy possibly do the job to offset the sour?  And then there’s the matter of all the wasted orange ones, because who eats the orange ones?  By the end of the season my whole tree would be nothing but orange, which is decidedly un-Christmas.  Also, what in the world is “redberry”?  Can’t they just be honest and call it a real fruit name, like cherry?  But, surprisingly, the cane version of the Sour Patch doesn’t disappoint.  Tangy, then sweet, living up to its “Sour then Sweet” promise.  I’d buy these again.

Sour Patch Candy Canes

And the winner is…Flavor-wise, these classic candy brands have all translated into quality canes.  But if I have to choose a winner, based on superior tree-decorating appeal and honest advertising, I must go with the Now and Laters.  And Now, I’m off to trim and crunch.  Later, friends.

I set out for my morning walk with purpose, because I need to soak up some Vitamin D and burn a few calories after last night’s minty cocktails and barbecue meatballs, and besides, I hear walks are supposed to be therapeutic, too. Along the way I encounter sidewalks full of leaves — the crunchy kind you can’t resist plowing through instead of walking around, going out of your way to crunch every leaf flat.

And I can’t help but flash back to when I was eight and had to walk to the café downtown after school to meet my dad so he could give me a ride home. Six whole blocks, bor-ing, and it took for-ev-er. But the crunchy leaves along the way served to ease the boredom, and I made sure to shuffle through and stomp on each and every one. Oh, get that one, too. And that one.

How could I have imagined back then that some thirty years later I’d go for these walks on purpose, and five times as long. And that I’d do it in this far-away place called Nashville, Tennessee, where my favorite girl singer, Sissy-Spacek-playing-Loretta-Lynn, sang at the Grand Ole Opry. And that I wouldn’t be on my way to meet my dad, get a quarter for the Ms. Pacman machine and maybe another for a Hershey bar, bug him to finish his coffee so we could go home already. That instead I’d be wishing I could have a cup of coffee with him, ask him how he’s doing.

Nope, I never could have imagined this.

But one thing hasn’t changed. The impulse to crunch those crunchable leaves. And that one. And that one, too.

The matching sock to every sock in the mismatch pile…my favorite T-shirt from 2007…a ten-dollar bill and four pennies…it’s amazing the things you discover when your washer’s on the blink. Mine’s been out of commission for a week. Diagnosis: kaput motor, according to the repairman who lifted the washer off the ground to inspect the drain while I closed my eyes and prayed to heaven a dirty bra wasn’t crumpled up underneath.

But it’s not just the long-lost stuff underneath the washer. A malfunctioning washer reveals other interesting tidbits, too. Like the lengths you’ll go to avoid visiting a laundromat. Today, for example, I’m wearing a dirty tank top I found at the bottom of the laundry mountain on my bedroom floor and socks dotted with kittens poking their noses out of Christmas stockings. (I figure both will be hidden under other garments, and my track record with men lately means they’ll stay that way.)

Then there are the hidden jewels inside my closet and drawers, unearthed after years of dormancy behind my Favorite Clothes. The cotton sundress from Target with the tag still on it because I was too lazy to try it on at the store and too lazy to return it once I got home and realized I couldn’t pull it over my chest. (Got it from the teen department.)

And all those skinny jeans I’m saving for the day I implement that diet and exercise plan posted on my fridge (just beneath the coupons for holiday Hershey’s Kisses). Grunt…oomph…nope, still can’t button them.

And the tablecloth-fabric plaid wraparound skirt and floral leggings from my college days that could come back in style, you just wait, and, anyway, the Smithsonian might pay me a bundle for them one day to include in its 1994 Room.

And all my summer sweaters I still haven’t moved to the back of the closet even though it’s fall, and all my fall sweaters at the back of the closet hidden by the summer sweaters.

Ooh! And that crocheted shawl I really like. I forgot I owned this! I wrap it over my dirty tank top (hmmm…starting to smell a bit) and go to let in the washer repair guy with my shiny new motor.

Really, what kind of company would try to make a buck off someone’s singlehood? Read all about it in my latest Her Nashville column.