People often bemoan the fact that most holidays — especially the one that just passed — have been commercialized by our money-grubbing, everyone-wants-a-piece-of-the-pie culture. These people are perhaps overlooking the single greatest contribution that this commercialization makes to our holidays: discount candy! Obtaining perfectly good candy at obscenely low prices just because it’s wrapped in the colors of yesterday’s event has certainly become the most important part of my holidays. In fact, it’s gotten to the point where I judge holidays not on their cultural significance but on what I can buy for 50 percent off the next day. What follows is a grading of the holidays, based on what really matters: the candy.

Valentine’s Day
One word sums up the candy scene on Valentine’s Day: chocolate. Long before the connection between chocolate and sex was scientifically confirmed (both release the same hormone, oxytocin, into the bloodstream), lovers were proffering each other chocolate in exchange for sex. Valentine’s Day brings a bevy of molded, foil-wrapped chocolates to the table, which isn’t much in the way of variety but, hey, it is chocolate, so you won’t find any complaints here.

The most oft-heard complaint about Valentine’s Day candy regards those candy message hearts. True, they taste like chalk, but you’re not supposed to eat them. Candy hearts exist to provide amusement, not to titillate taste buds, and amuse they do with such romantic overtures as MAD 4 YOU, YOU [illegible], [illegible]K, and READ MORE. Candy hearts inject fun into any Valentine’s Day, especially if you change all of the messages to something dirty.

The highlight of Valentine’s Day is the Whitman’s Sampler, not because it’s tasty (which it is) but because it’s accompanied by a little map that identifies the filling of each chocolate. You can use this as a guide to giving other people the ones you don’t like, but, more importantly, you can put it on a light-box and pretend to be a doctor examining an x-ray film. Prognosis: delicious! A-

St. Patrick’s Day
Let’s face it: St. Patrick’s Day is not about candy. It’s about dyeing things green, drinking beer and drinking beer that has been dyed green. Green bagels are pretty cool, but they aren’t candy. D

Easter
Easter provides the greatest variety of candy, because, really, what better way to celebrate the Resurrection than by going into an insulin coma? While most other holidays rely on the old standards rewrapped in appropriate colors, Easter refuses to stoop so low, instead relying on the old standards reshaped as eggs. Originally, Cadbury Creme Eggs — which might just be the greatest candy of all time — dominated the egg market, but the egg shape has proven to be the perfect vehicle for almost any filling, be it Snickers, fondant or a toy that can choke small children.

Easter also brings the original chick-shaped Peeps, which have been scientifically shown to be better than a glucose I.V. at getting sugar into your bloodstream. And for those who prefer some pectin in their sugar, jellybeans can’t be beat. Easter may be a denominational holiday, but the candy aisle is always secular. A

Fourth of July
Never stick a lit sparkler inside your mouth. Trust me on this one. F

Halloween
Halloween is a candy paradox. On the one hand, you have a holiday whose entire modern conception revolves around candy — and it’s free candy, at that. On the other hand, people tend to cut confectionary corners, buying the cheapest candy they can find. Case in point: candy corn, or worse yet, candy corn’s bastard stepchild, the mellocreme.

Going through my loot after a night of trick-or-treating usually proved to be a huge disappointment; scattered amongst the Dum-Dums and Cherry Whatchamacallits (which always left my mouth vaguely numb) was the occasional diminutive piece of chocolate or a box containing three Milk Duds. Even then, the elusive flash of foil was often the wrapping of a Hershey Kiss — which, as every city kid knows, must be summarily thrown out because the square micrometer of exposed chocolate at the point could have been poisoned.

But it gets worse. There’s always that one darkened house where the creepy guy invites you into his foyer and gestures for you to stick your hand inside his grab bag of Halloween candy horror. I once got a half-used roll of Tums. My best friend, Jilli, got a single unwrapped Oreo with a piece chipped off.

Halloween is also the only holiday where you have to worry about people putting razor blades in your candy — unless you have a particularly rocky relationship with your grandmother. Cheap candy with the occasional windfall makes Halloween a solid B-.

Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is less about candy and more about copious amounts of pie. Pie is good, especially in copious amounts. Since it’s sweet, I count it as half-candy. C

Chanukah
Jews aren’t exactly known for their confectionary skills. We make amazing potato products, but when it comes to candy we’ve only made one major contribution, and that’s Chanukah gelt: milk chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil and packaged in a yellow netting bag that’s impossible to open. Still, it’s chocolate. C+

Christmas
What Christmas lacks in variety it makes up for in sheer volume. The holiday season essentially gives you carte blanche to eat whatever you want, and, more often than not, “whatever you want” equals “pounds and pounds of candy.” I’m not a huge fan of candy canes, as they’re impossible to eat without either lacerating your mouth or drooling all over your hand, but the curve does lend a certain aesthetic appeal and they leave you with minty-fresh breath. The ubiquity of chocolate is hard to argue with as well. B+