AN: I don't own any of the hobbit characters I am just taking them out of Tolkien's toy box and playing with them.
A candy cane or peppermint stick is a cane-shaped hard candy stick associated with Christmas. It is traditionally white with red stripes and flavoured with peppermint; but is also made in a variety of other flavours and colours. I personally could eat the peppermint ones by the box full and am always disappointed when I am presented with one of another flavour. My favourite thing on a cold night is to curl up with a mug of steaming homemade hot chocolate and stir it with the peppermint cane until the drink takes on the sweet yumminess of the treat. Try it.
Peppermint – Day 10.
Bombur smiled widely as a confused and rumpled looking Bilbo joined him the great palace kitchens of Erebor. The hobbit politely hid a yawn behind his hand and wandered up to blink sleepily at the dwarf cook. "So is there any reason we are awake at this unseasonable hour when it is still cold and dark outside?"
Bombur laughed delightedly as he started to set up his work bench. "Well yes Master Baggins, I thought you would like to share in a dwarven Yule tradition. Also it is always cold and dark outside this time of year."
Bilbo laughed sleepily and rolled his sleeves up with little fuss. "So then Bombur, show me this tradition."
Slowly the rest of Erebor's royal cooks trickled into the huge kitchens and the air was filled with the scents of chocolate, peppermint and the sounds of singing and laughter.
Bilbo concentrated on twisting the strands of red and white hot sugar paste around each other and forming them into miniature walking canes. Resisting the urge to eat them he giggled like a child when he slapped at any fingers that tried to steal them from the cooling trays he was placing them on. Beside him Bombur sung happily as he poured chocolate custard over peppermint bread and carefully placed the full trays in one of the ovens.
Across the room, Bombur's wife was working with several other females in creating tray upon tray of confectionary treats. Bilbo could spy rounds of dark chocolate sprinkled with coloured balls of peppermint flavour, he decided they looked rather jazzy. Beside them were mounds of white chocolate macaroons filled with glossy peppermint cream. Bowls of green and red boiled sugar peppermints glowed in the kitchen light. White beards were working diligently on making pink and white marshmallows and Bilbo couldn't help but wonder how those would taste.
He turned his head as he flexed his fingers, at the other side of the kitchen a group of younger cooks were happily making chocolate chip and peppermint filled cookies. While the head cook was painstakingly piping smooth peppermint sugar cream and covering it with molten chocolate to create rounds of glossy chocolate with a peppermint filling. A grin painting his face he turned back to his canes.
It wasn't until the end of shift bells tolled out that Bilbo realised he had worked the full day. Stretching and hearing his back pop he turned to Bombur to ask if they should head to one of the taverns for an easy supper when there was a young dwarf at his elbow offering him an earthen-ware mug filled to the brim with frothy hot chocolate. His delighted laughter filled the kitchen as he realised the spoon was actually a boiled sugar peppermint sweet.
As he sipped his now delightfully flavoured hot chocolate and chatted amicably with the cooks of Erebor Bilbo decided that he like this Yule tradition and he would have to write to the Old Took and describe this feast of flavours to him. He could see this taking hold in the Shire without a blink of protest.
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According to folklore, in 1670, in Cologne, Germany, the choirmaster at Cologne Cathedral, wishing to remedy the noise caused by children in his church during the Living Crèche tradition of Christmas Eve, asked a local candy maker for some sweet sticks for them. In order to justify the practice of giving candy to children during worship services, he asked the candy maker to add a crook to the top of each stick, which would help children remember the shepherds who paid visit to infant Jesus. In addition, he used the white colour of the converted sticks to teach children about the Christian belief in the sinless life of Jesus. From Germany, the candy canes spread to other parts of Europe, where they were handed out during plays re-enacting the Nativity.
There will be 24 chapters in this collection dedicated to the days of Advent. 1 chapter dedicated for Christmas day. And 12 chapters leading us up to the Twelfth Night and through the Twelve Days of Christmas.
Any and all requests will be taken into account. If I can't fit them in this I will dedicate them to you in one of my other collections of short stories as a Christmas present.