Christmas candy cane taunts me

The first few days after Christmas are magical. OK, maybe that’s not the best word. Instead, let’s go with, “really really good.”

That’s the best way I can think of to describe the post-holiday sales. The half-off wrapping and candy works for everybody. We get cheap stuff that will work next Christmas (and other holidays if we buy wrapping paper that’s innocuous), and the stores get that valuable holiday shelving to get their Valentine’s Day candy ready. What says, “I love you” more than peanut butter cups in January?

Still, I am on the wrong side of one equation. I can’t even get rid of some of my Christmas candy if I offer a 100 percent discount. Let me backtrack.

Twas two weeks before Christmas, and all through my place, Netflix delayed me from shaving my face.

I stumbled to the door as if I’d been woken, and the postal employee said, “Sounds like it’s broken.”

I wouldn’t have opened it immediately if I didn’t fear damage (rhyme time is over because I don’t feel like finding a rhyme for “immediately”). But I was able to relieve both the carrier and myself when we discovered it was just loose candy and an ornament with a bell.

The box included a wrapped package (which later turned out to be clothing) and many candy items — including a giant candy cane that’s still sitting on my desk.

When I was growing up, my late grandmother would always give me giant candy canes as a stocking stuffer. It was the one thing that was her personal touch, in addition to great gifts. I still think of her every time I open the pristine condition Scrabble board game she bought me eight years ago.

If you were to somehow straighten this cane out, it would be roughly 18 inches long and about six normal canes in thickness. Our office math estimates it contains anywhere from 10 to 14 normal canes.

It’s still in the wrapping, because I can’t fathom eating this thing. Do I eat it all in one sitting, and have minty fresh breath and a sugar high for the next six hours? Or do I trust my poor sense of proportions, and my laziness, to make uniform pieces for a couple weeks worth of mints? Or do I, as a co-worker suggested, put it in a plastic bag, bash it with a hammer and use the powder for baking purposes?

So far, I’ve chosen none of the above, and my desk has hosted this giant cane that makes me look like the king of the candy castle.

I can’t give it away either. Nobody wants to deal with the options listed above. It would be the same ordeal if I had a fruitcake, I guess.

Whatever I do with it, I need to tell the family to break the giant cane tradition, because I don’t need it to remember my grandmother. I’ll suggest a new tradition instead.

I just have to find a classy way to suggest pizza or bacon.