HOLIDAY CANDY SALES CREATE SWEET PROFITS FOR MAKERS.

Byline: Samantha Zee Bloomberg News

Those marshmallow Santas and chocolate reindeer add up. During the Christmas and Hanukkah holidays, $1.5 billion worth of specialty candy will be consumed in the United States, a record for the season.

Only Halloween and Easter generate bigger sales, according to the National Confectioners Association in McLean, Va., which expects a 4.4 percent increase in candy sales for the season.

``Confectionery is as much a part of the season as turkey and jingle bells,'' said Larry Graham, president of the candy industry trade group. ``This season we anticipate more than $325 million worth of boxed chocolates alone will be sold.''

There's also a lot of Christmas stockings to stuff with all manner of sweets. Then there are such novelty items as boxed chocolates with eggnog-flavored centers and jelly beans that taste like hot chocolate, pumpkin pie and cranberry - all big items this year, Graham said.

More than 1.76 billion candy canes were made for the holidays, the NCA said. Also popular are the gold foil-wrapped chocolate coins often handed out to children by grandparents during Hanukkah celebrations.

Companies such as Pennsylvania-based Hershey Foods Corp., the nation's largest candy company, and Mars Inc. of Hackettstown, N.J., launch new candy items after Thanksgiving in late November with an eye on end-of-year holiday sales.

Hershey precipitated the onslaught of specially packaged Christmas candy in 1962, when it decked out its perennial favorite chocolate Kisses in red, green and silver foil wrappers.

Hershey reported in October that its third-quarter earnings rose 6.8 percent to $107.5 million, its second-best quarter ever, partly because of higher holiday candy sales. Candy companies began shipping the more expensive - and more profitable - boxed assortments of chocolates for Christmas gift-giving soon after little ghosts and goblins finished their Halloween treats in late October.

Among the products offered by Hershey this season is ``Pot of Gold Cameos,'' a gift box containing eight white chocolate angels surrounded by a milk chocolate star, and a set of 10 hollow milk chocolate tree ornaments wrapped in colored foil.

Still, the most popular treats this time of year are those cellophane bags of individually wrapped candies, according to N.K. Friedricks & Associated Inc., a consumer products research group. They're just right for a family's carefully hung Christmas stockings.

At a store in Manhattan's boutique-laden East Village, Anne Jones picked through tables piled high with holiday candy, looking for treats to fill candy bowls for her Christmas party two days away.

Amid the miniature Snickers bars, Hershey Rolo's, Mars almond bars and plain M&Ms and plastic candy canes filled with Reese's Pieces was a small tin of chocolates.

``I'm having a party so I want candies that people can snack on,'' the 33-year old fashion marketer said, and chocolates are ``always a safe bet'' for gift-giving.

Most shoppers don't wait quite so long to stock up for the holidays; candy purchases actually peak in the second week of December, with about 67 percent of sales recorded around that time, Graham said.

With the price of cocoa, the main ingredient in chocolate, 16 percent lower than a year ago, candy makers will enjoy their holiday season more than ever.

And there's no time to rest. With candy sales for Valentine's Day on Feb. 14 expected to be 7 percent higher than a year earlier, and Easter sales 5.5 percent higher, according to the NCA, candy hearts and chocolate bunnies aren't that far away.