Joy in Holiday Chocolates

by Kristyne McDaniel

Chocolates are part of the joy on holidays. My mother always gave me and my sisters’ chocolates on holidays. She never had any chocolate in the house any other time of the year. My little sister turned this tradition on its ear when she started school.

Sandy, my little sister, found out in school that there are a lot of holidays that she hadn’t known about. She found out that there is a holiday almost every day somewhere in the world. She quizzed our mother about her policy on chocolates and then came up with a great plan.

She made a list of all of the new holidays that we would be celebrating in our house. She did this in an effort to have more chocolates, but it ended up being a really fun and quirky part of our family. We were the only family in our town that probably celebrated Groundhog Day with chocolates.

Valentine’s Day is an obvious holiday for chocolates. The not so obvious holidays for chocolates are St. Patrick’s Day or Lincoln’s Birthday. We celebrated every holiday that Sandy wanted to with fervor. I even made trees from chocolates on Arbor Day.

Most people that know me know about my continued obsession with holidays and chocolates. I went to the store on Earth Day and bought everyone at my office chocolates that were organically grown and fairly traded. Those are my favorite chocolates.

I have never really been able to come up with a theme that included chocolates for United Nations Day until last year. I had a brainstorm and came up with the idea of molded chocolates decorated like the flags of the world. It was a heck of an undertaking, but the end result was worth it. I invited Sandy and my other two sisters over for a party with chocolates, just like when we were kids.

My best advice to kids with sisters like mine is to never eat the chocolates on April Fool’s Day. It is actually best to avoid eating anything that anybody gives you on this holiday. I have been fooled more than twice in my life that is for sure.

My favorite holiday for chocolates has always been and will probably always be Halloween. I just love chocolates on Halloween. I always give chocolates out to the neighbor children. I try to give the kind of chocolates that make kids dig through their snack sacks at the end of my driveway. Even though I’ve grown up, I still want all of the chocolate holidays to be fun.