Chocolate in a colourful candy shell - not to be confused with M&Ms, Smarties are a Canadian candy, often available in the chocolate bar section. I could not find Smarties in the US when I lived there. They were sadly missed. Not just Smarties of course, but Smarties were on my top ten list of missed things at the time.

This picture is Smartie wallpaper. No matter how far technology has come you still can not email Smarties to family and friends. I would have done it if there was a chance it would have worked.

I grew up as the oldest in a family of four children. My Mother was very popular the day she came up with the idea of a Smartie Party. She brought home a huge (we were kids, it likely seemed a lot bigger then) bag of Smarties from the bulk food store. (It was the first bulk food store we had in our area so it was already a place of great wonders and wonderful things). My Mom thought up games where we guessed how many red Smarties she had under a cup. Or, which colour of Smartie there were four of when she poured a bunch of them out of the bag. Of course, the prize for all the games were.... Smarties! So everyone won and we shared with my littlest sister who wasn't so great at math yet.

Unlike the US M&Ms, Smarties will leave colour on your hands. But, that was not a problem for a pack of kids. We liked to see how many colours we could wear and who could have the best stain before the Smarties melted. Another great Smartie thing was to keep them in your mouth until the candy softened and the chocolate centre was mushy, it was like liquid, gooey chocolate goodness.

Now, when I think of Smarties, I mostly remember them in a big puddle of colours from the days of those Smarties Parties.

When you eat your Smarties do you eat the red ones last?