Candy Canes Coloring Page

About this coloring page

Two candy canes crossed, with a ribbon bow where they meet and three snowflakes around them. The stripes are what this page is for. They are drawn as separate bands rather than as lines across a single shape, so alternating red and white happens naturally and a child gets a satisfying rhythm going without having to keep track of anything. That alternation is genuinely useful practice, because it asks a child to hold a simple rule in mind while their hand is busy, which is harder than it sounds at four. The bow gives somewhere for a third color, and the snowflakes are small enough to leave white if a child has had enough. It is a good page for a child who tires quickly, since the picture looks complete after just the canes. The canes sit diagonally across the sheet, which means the drawing prints well at half size with two to a page. If you are making paper decorations rather than coloring pages, print on card and the finished canes will hang without curling, which ordinary copier paper will not manage once it has been colored heavily.

Color suggestions

• Classic red and white bands
• Or three colors rotating
• Green ribbon bow
• Leave the snowflakes white

Did you know?

• The bent hook shape is traditionally credited to a choirmaster in Cologne who is said to have bent sugar sticks into crooks around 1670 so they resembled a shepherd's staff.
• Candy canes were plain white for most of their history. The red stripe does not appear in any known illustration until around 1900, despite the many stories claiming the colors were symbolic from the start.