Broken Candy Canes?

Candy canes. The one thing about the Christmas holiday that Holly absolutely could not stand. How odd it was that a simple, innocent little peppermint treats could have caused her so much distress. She hadn't always hated the candy, in fact at one point she loved them. She anticipated the minty favor hitting her awaiting tongue. That is until the broke by the instant contact of her hand, after awhile she just ended up giving up. She knew what would happen. The beautiful, sleek, red and white wrapped treat would break in half and fall pathetically to the ground. She would then groan in frustration and stomp back upstairs to her room.

Just three weeks before Christmas, Holly and her parents were in the living room in the presence of their newly bought, emerald green Christmas tree, towering over them. Boxes and boxes of colorful and delicate ornaments cluttered the whole corner area of the living room. Holly couldn't wait to decorate the Christmas tree with her parents. One of the many holiday traditions that she loved doing (that and making gingerbread houses with her family).

"So...are you ready to put up the ornaments?" Holly's mom asked her once they had finished wrapped the string of lights around every part of the tree.

She smiled, "You know it!" she replied enthusiastically, going over to one of the ornament boxed and picked out her favorite one. The shiny, dangly crystal ornament twinkled with the light as she walked over to the tree and placed it delicately on one of the branches. She smiled to herself as she watched the ornament twist and twirl on the tree. The light capturing it's every movement. After awhile they were almost done with decorating the tree. All that was left to put up now was…

“Hey, Holly! Catch,” her dad called to her, throwing a single candy cane from the now opened box. Now it was time to but up the candy canes. Holly outstretched her arms and caught the candy in her awaiting hands. Wow for once it didn’t break! She thought to herself happily as she looked down at the candy cane. Then something caught her eye, oh…wait never mind, She thought to herself as she noticed a small break at the tip of the cane.

She sighed, “Mom, Dad, this one’s broken…again,” she told them as they started laughing hysterically. Holly sighed. She remembered it like it was yesterday. The very first day that she had gotten her first broken candy cane, and, ironically, the time where it started the continues broken candy canes.

She was in kindergarten and her class was putting on their first holiday play. Everyone was there from parents to relatives of the children in the class. All was going well, they had been singing and performing a lot of holiday songs. Every single person dressed up as either a reindeer or candy canes. As you might have guessed, yes, she was the candy cane. All dressed in red and white with a little candy cane tip as her hat. While they were singing, the teacher was handing out little candy cane treats to all the little kindergartners that had worked so hard to put on this performance.

Once the teacher came around to Holly putting the little twisted treat in her little outstretched, eager hands, it chattered. The tip of the candy cane hanging in the plastic wrapper limp and pathetic. To the little kindergarten Holly, it was the worst thing that could have happened. She looked down at the now broken treat that she would never be able to eat and cried. She cried so hard and hysterically that she actually ended up stopping the whole performance. Tears streamed down her face as she kept her eyes locked onto the candy, disappointment filled her. She could only allow herself to mutter out two or three words of the song that they were singing.

After that incident, Holly never heard the end of it. Now there was this little inside joke between her and her family around the holidays, every time one of the candy canes breaks. It always happened to her too, no one else.

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Two days later, Holly was sitting in her homeroom class. Today was three days before their break and their school decided to do something fun. A candy cane exchange! Ohh...the irony. The one day a year where people can buy candy canes for someone and people will delivery them to the person you bought them for, with a little note attached to it. It was a really cute idea and she actually had enough guts to buy one for her crush, Jamie.

Five minutes later, upperclassman, dressed up as little Santa's, walked into class. At once a whole bunch of laughter erupted. They waited until all the laughing had subsided to pass out the little treats. Holly, watched as the upperclassmen walked around the room, giving the giggling girls their candy and watched as the guys took the candy without saying anything and silently read the little post-it not attached. Holly then began to wonder if she was getting one, she knew that he friends weren’t getting her one because they had already gave each other their gifts the day before. Just as she was about to loss hope, there came a voice.

“Ho, Ho, Ho, Are you Miss. Holly?” asked one of the upperclassmen, in a fake Santa chuckle. She couldn’t help but giggle as she nodded and the guy handed her, her candy cane happily. She glanced down at the note and her eyes widened and a smile spread wide across her face.

I've never had the courage to get you a candy cane...until today. I hope you like it.
I'm not even brave enough to put my name on this...how lame is that?

The little yellow post-it note that was attached to Holly's little candy cane said. She couldn't help but smile at the fact that for once, her of all people; she actually had a secret admirer. Even though she didn't know his name, it was still nice to think about. He seemed like he was a nice guy too. The note was all Holly could think about the whole period. She kept on wondering who the person could have possibly been. She wondered if it was Jamie, but then quickly got that idea out of her head. Why would Jamie get her a candy cane? She'd never even had an actually conversation with him...she doubted that he even knew who she was. She was so engrossed with her thoughts that she didn't notice her elbow crash down on her little mystery Candy Cane and split the top clean off. She groaned, you've got to be kidding me...again?

Before long the end of period bell rang and she quickly packed up her stuff and walked out of the classroom, on her way to her locker to get everything that she needed for the rest of her classes. Once she opened her locker and began putting her books away, she heard a voice.

"Hey...Holly," the voice called. Holly turned her head to see Jamie standing right there, at her locker. She shook her head slightly just to make sure that she wasn't daydreaming before she replied.

"Yes?" she asked him, turning her body towards him. Jamie looked away; she could tell from his facial expression that he was embarrassed about something. What he was embarrassed about, she had no idea. Was he embarrassed to be talking to her? No, that couldn't be it, why would he be embarrassed if he was the one to actually start the conversation with her.

"I was...wondering. Did you...get my candy cane?" he asked Holly. He turned his head away from her slightly and from what she could see, he was blushing a little, a line of red ran across his cheeks. She smiled. So Jamie was the one that had sent her the candy. Knowing this made her happy, really happy. Maybe Jamie did like her. The thought of it made her want to yell out in joy.

"Yeah, I did. Thanks so much! But it kinda...broke," she replied to him, laughing slightly.
"Really? It did? How did it break?" he asked her in interest. Holly sighed as she began to explain.

"Well, see I have this thing with Candy Canes, for some reason, that whenever I touch them or handle them, they always seem to break," she explained to him. All of a sudden Jamie broke out laughing.

"Really?" he replied, pulling out the candy cane that Holly had gotten him, "mine didn't break."

She smiled, "Well, that's because I wasn't the one how actually handed it to you, the upperclassman did, remember?"

"Oh yeah that's true," he told her, thinking for a minute, then his face lite up. He took his candy cane and deliberately broke of the tip of it, "there! Now it's truly from you!"

Holly laughed as she agreed and they both went to their classes. As she was walking to her next class she wondered, maybe broken candy canes aren't as bad as I thought.