Sweethearts Candy

My fondest memories of Valentine's Day are from elementary school. Of course, I'm old enough to remember Valentine's Day parties and the little valentines you gave to your classmates. I have fond memories of going through my valentines to see what everyone wrote on the cards, looking for that special person in your class. Every year someone would give you a little box of Sweethearts, the heart-shaped candies with sayings on them. I remember putting a Kiss Me heart on the desk of a little boy that I liked in the third grade. He was my first boyfriend until Susan, that naughty temptress, lured him away.

For fun, I thought I would see if I could find some history on how these candies were created. Wikipedia had a full page devoted to these cute little candies. They began in 1847 when Oliver Chase invented a machine that cut lozenges from wafer candy. He built a candy factory and his brother, Daniel made a stamp that you could press into the candy with different sayings. At that time, the candies were made for weddings and had some unique sayings. The heart-shaped candies that we know didn't get their start until 1901. Every year, Necco produces over 100,000 pounds of hearts each day from February through mid January. In 1990, the company that owns the candies updated the sayings.



Curious to see what the updated sayings were, I bought a bag of Sweethearts. Now, I have an extremely busy life, but I decided I would write down all the sayings in that bag of candy. There were 56 different sayings, which I'm not going to bore you with here, but I'll give you the ones that I don't remember and thought were unique. So here they are: Game on, Reach 4 It, Race Me, Friend Me, Let's Ride, Hey Babe, Time 2 Dance, Shake It, UR Hot, UR It, Wink Wink, Soul Mate and Text Me! Glad to see the candy makers are keeping up with the times, though Race Me is kind of strange? Race me to the bedroom?

Receiving a Valentine is always fun and every year my husband gives me a sweet card, candy and or flowers. This day we all celebrate love with our significant others, our children and family. As Romance Readers and Writers, this day is made just for us and this year I decided to participate in a Valentine's Day anthology.

What if you grew up in a town called Cupid, Texas and you ran away when you were eighteen to keep the boy you love, from making the colossal mistake of marrying you? Now ten years later you're returning for your best-friend's wedding and will see him for the first time. Game on, in Cupid, Texas, where Wink Wink, UR Hot meets Soul Mate.

So what is your most memorable Valentine's Day? Was it flowers, candy or just a sweet card from the man who makes you smile and warms your heart?