I may be slow but I just realized that holiday candy is nothing more than regular candy in new clothes. Yes, Virginia, that colorful looking wrapping hides nothing special underneath.
I found myself putting an Easter goody in my cart and as I pushed toward the checkout I read the back, chocolate, coconut, “Hey, I thought. This sounds just like a Mounds Bar,” so sure enough I wandered to that aisle. (This is why it takes me hours to do the grocery shopping). I checked and yes indeed, the ingredients were the same. Here I was ready to shell out premium dollars because they’d taken a regular candy bar and put it in a nice shiny wrapper all dressed up for Sunday school!
I put it back. I look at candy bars all the time but I rarely buy them. Usually all it takes is a glance at the nutritional panel, and when I see the 12 grams of fat I think, “I’d rather have cheesecake,” and put it back.
So, next holiday make sure you aren’t just paying extra for the pretty packaging. If you don’t usually buy candy bars, why are you buying them now in their Halloween or Christmas colors? What is it about the red-white-and-blue packages that we are drawn to (frankly, those are not colors that are generally associated with food anyway). What about the pastel M&M’s? That’s just dumb to me becaues it’s the bright colors that makes me want M&Ms in the first place. Take that away and what have you got? For the record, I could have a million white M&Ms and I doubt I’d ever touch them.
So, next time you’re wandering the holiday aisles, just keep in mind, you are paying more money for the same thing. Wait for it to be really special. Shop speciality stores. This marketing ploy is just not funny anymore.
