Christmas Advent Day #9 - Candy Bags

Receiving candy bags at church was a highlight of many Christmases past. Every year, when I was younger, our church would have a Christmas Program (play, pageant). And after the program was over, they would pass out candy bags to everyone. I can remember these bags very well. I remember who bought the candy, where the candy came from, who put the bags together, etc.

The candy came from Klein's store, when they were in the center of Forest Hill, where they first began. At Christmas time the store added more bins of candy, to the already many candy bins already there. This candy was not already bagged. This candy, you would scoop out of bins or boxes, and fill your own bags. Then it would get weighed on the big scale from the ceiling. My brother and I went with my grandfather and watched as he selected, bagged and weighed each kind of candy.

 There were so many varieties of candy at Klein's. And each candy bag for the church would also have a great variety of candy in them. Some that I remember were, the  chocolate drops (vanilla cream centers covered in chocolate and shaped like a drop), the hard candy filled with some kind of jelly inside, and then there were just plain hard candies, in all shapes, sizes, striped, solid color. I am sure there were other candies mixed in there, but those are the ones I remember the most, probably because those were my favorites.Also in these candy bags would be nuts, of all kinds. Not only that, but there was an orange in each bag also. 

Wow, now that I am older, I realize that was alot of stuff in our candy bags. We have done that in the past, since Ricky and I have been married. Especially in the churches that his Dad pastored. Some where down the road, it stopped though. Was it the expense, the time involved, someone to commit to getting them done? That was a tradition that started when we were young and continued through to when Chrissy was about ten. I guess, as they say, all good things must come to an end sometime.