chocolate covered cherries and Flash

The past few days I've had a Flash header in place that I received from FlashBannerNow. I put my old header back up but I have it the Flash there below if you didn't see it when it was up on the blog.

I liked the way it looked but not the advertising on it. Of course to get it without advertising either I have to pay for it (ha!) or I have to program one in Flash. We'll have to wait and see if I'm going to bother to do that. The native language in Flash--Actionscript--is very similar to javascript so it shouldn't be very difficult to work with. Somewhere or other I have the programming version of Flash around since I used to work with it a bit when I was doing some work for dot coms. Of course it's pretty out of date--it's been 6 years since I've done any programming. To say I'm rusty is an understatement.



Christmas is going to be quickly upon us and I've done virtually no shopping yet. My guess is that I'd better get my wheels in motion this weekend or else it's going to be a very bad "week before Xmas" for me.

Here's a question for anyone that wants to answer it. What's your favorite sweet thing that you associate with Christmas (or the end of the calendar year for non-Christians)? My favorite--for as long as I can remember--is Queen Anne chocolate covered cherries. I can, and have, eaten pounds of them a week for many, many weeks--but they're difficult to find the rest of the year and a lot more expensive when you do find them. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas they're cheap and usually plentiful. I like them a lot more than expensive chocolates. They were the house brand for A&P, sold under the name Ann Page, back when I was a kid.

It's hard to believe now, but in the decade before I was born A&P was the biggest name in Supermarkets. While it's only got around 400 stores now, mostly in the NY / NJ area, it used to have over 20,000 locations all across the USA. It's amazing to see how far a company can fall in 30 years.

Comments

Olyal said…
You're showing your age Dave... but that just makes us love you more. :o) I love "christmas balls" which are just little balls of chocolate wrapped in christmassy foil. Very simple but you've gotta get the right ones or they don't taste quite right... And pavlova! Nothing like a christmas pavlova... or any kind of pav really!
6:26 AM
Anonymous said…
For me it's Terry's Chocolate Orange. We can buy them all year round but I never buy them except at Christmas...and always thoroughly enjoy them!
8:33 AM
srp said…
I remember A&P. In the south they have Jitney Jungle. I never heard of that grocery store until we moved to Mississippi. Then I decided to re-read "To Kill A Mockingbird" and wouldn't you know it.... Jitney Jungle is mentioned. I didn't notice or it didn't register the first time I read it.... oh, yes, I lived in Pennsylvania in high school so this wasn't a name I was familiar with.

Chocolate covered cherries..... one of my two, er.... three favorites. And the Queen Anne... Walmart usually has for 99 cents a box at Christmas. The others..... MY #1 favorite candy of all time and forever is...... Mallo Cups. Another candy hard to come by. At Halloween, RiteAid has the smaller version. To get the real ones you have to order them, even though the candy company is still in business. My third favorite is my mother's homemade fudge with walnuts. Forbes makes pretty good fudge too.
12:30 PM
Anonymous said…
That's a meteorite fall for A&P alright.

I'm split between after eights and fererro rocher.
1:08 PM
Anonymous said…
I've always loved chocolate covered cherries but probably haven't had them in 20 years. I'll look for that brand. Right now I'm into a German Stolen that a local woman makes.
11:26 PM
carmilevy said…
There's a lesson in A&P's fall for any retailer: it can happen to any firm that loses its way.

Wal-Mart isn't invulnerable. May we all live so long to witness its downfall.

Our neighborhood grocery store - a fairly sad, funky little place - is an A&P.

Suddenly, I'm hungry for cherries.

Back from Michele's. See you very soon, I'm sure!
12:19 AM
Anonymous said…
Chocolate covered cherries!? YUM! I'd vote chocolate covered anything - fruits that is. LOL!

But of all the sweet things I associate with Christmas...it must be my mom's pineapple tarts (it's a Eurasian thing) and her heavily brandied fruitcake. There must be at least one for Christmas or it doesn't feel like Christmas.
10:04 AM
Anonymous said…
My favorite Christmas *sweet thing* is Mince pie.

But my favorite Christmas *candy* is actually the same as yours - cherry cordials. But I only like the dark chocolate variety.
3:20 PM
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