At this site are descriptions of the exotic Christmas celebrations in five countries around the world.
Canada:
**I’ve never heard of this. Have any of you ever done this, or is this just Little House on the Prairie stuff?
?
Hm, single women, eligible bachelors… are we sure it’s taffy that’s being pulled? 
We used to do it every year at school when I was growing up! (and for the record, I’m 24, so I’m not THAT old)
Taffy pulling is FUN. REALLY fun. Plus that stuff is TASTY.
Gramma and I used to make it too, when I was little. We’d cut the taffy with some scissors, n’ then wrap it up in wax paper. If I recall, the story behind it didn’t include Christmas stuff - it was more of a story involving luring children to school… but I digress.
Man, now I have a craving for St. Catherine taffy. 
Okay, so after I hit the submit button, everything comes back to me.
Here’s the story behind it:
November 25 was Sainte-Catherine day here in Quebec. In the XIX century, this holiday was a day off from school because it was a popular day for marriages (here’s your Looooove connection), and was a religious holiday. Every household made taffy, and there was a communal bash to celebrate, with plenty of sweets to go around. The origin of the STORY behind it is that of Marguerite Bourgeoys, during the 1650s, in Ville Marie (which is now Montreal). Story has it that, to celebrate the anniversary of the opening of the first school in the region, she gave children (her students) candy, pralines, and other goodies that she had had shipped from france.
One year, the boat was late, so she was trying to find a way to reward her students without her usual goodies. So, she made this taffy. It involves boiling molasses, cooling it down, stretching it (the pulling part) until it gets that lovely golden colour… and she called it Sainte-Catherine taffy in honour of the saint whose birthday was celebrated that day. 
There you go.
It’s a big part of French Canadian tradition, here. Apparently it’s made it into the anglophone stories, but there you have it. It’s one of ours. It’s barely celebrated nowadays, but in my family, we still do the taffy pull. I expect my old aunt Louise to make some again this year!
Yup, Elenfair, we did that every year when I was growing up, as my mother is French-Canadian. She’d get out this huge dutch oven and cook the whole thing up, then pour it into greased and floured cake pans to cool outside. Then we’d pull the taffy until it was golden, my mother would cut it up into little pieces, then wrap each one in waxed paper. I’d bring some to school the next day to share with my classmates. It made me popular, at least for one day.
Well that’s pretty cool. Do I understand that as a community event, taffy pulling has gone the way of the dodo?
pretty much, dqa.
It’s unfortunate. It was fun.
I’m sure some people still do it, in families, but as communities, it’s pretty much a lost tradition. 
Why is it pulled again? To get color? Does anyone know why it colors when pulled? Is this a job for Cecil?
I think that pulling the candy incorporates air into it making it lighter both in color and texture. That’s the way it works when making fondant anyway, which I’ve done before. Working the mass of sugar syrup incorporates air and turns it a fluffy white.
We would make and pull taffy when I was in grades 1-5…
You neglected to mention that you were attending a French school at the time, magic8 ball. Taffy-pulling is still done every year in Yellowknife at the Cabane a Sucre during Raven Mad Daze. I believe the pulling is done to incorporate air, which makes it lovely and soft and stick-to-your-teethy.
The tradition has died out because it wasn’t very “PC”, rather outdated, and mostly because French Canadians began drifting away from the Roman Catholic church.
Although it started as a way to bring kids together, in it’s heyday it was a time to highlight “old maids” (vielles filles) who, in a strict Catholic nation, were made to feel embarrassed by the community for not being nuns or married by age 25. It supposedly was all in good fun, but a spinster aunt has given me a differing viewpoint.
Pull taffy is still made here around this time, it’s nice and cold outside, and sometimes given to unmarried women in the family, but hopefully in (honest) jest.
The second recipe in Elenfair’s link (only one year before you’re an old maid Elly! Ha!) is the more authentic, but I’d add the vanilla extract from the first recipe. (Cassonade=brown sugar, and the vinegar is essential.) The trick is to let it cool enough that it can be pulled without burning your hands but hasn’t hardened like lava. Pull out, fold together like a sheet, and twist like a rope, repeat often. Lay out in strips in a greased pyrex casserole, cut with knife or break with a hammer after it has hardened in the fridge. The same taffy with a bunch of baking soda makes sponge taffy IIRC.
Warning: Hot taffy is hot. I use clean rubber gloves with cotton gardening gloves for insulation when pulling.
Neither I, nor my Quebecoise wife have ever heard of this tradition.
Maybe it’s a rural thing… Her family’s been citified for generations.
Being a child of the Quiet Revolution, I remember growing up with this tradition. Although our family never made the taffy itself. We usually had store bought one. Perhaps your wife would remember it under another name, ask her about “klondykes”.
As for it’s disappearance, my WAG is that as Québec became more and more secularized, it survived mostly in areas were there where only French pockets as a mean to ascertain a cultural survival.
Huh? French pockets?
My apologies. There should be an “isolated” in there. Like in : “there where only isolated French pockets as a mean to ascertain a cultural survival.”
Here I was thinking there was a French Canadian dessert I hadn’t heard about.
I never pulled taffy by hand , but my mom told me when I was a little kid I was totally fascinated by taffy pulling machines. She said I would probably have stood their for hours mesmerized by the thing. Hehe I still think are are kinda cool to watch They do the little dance of flailing arms and swirling colors, it’s just kind of soothing(yeah so I’m easily entertained, sue me).
For the record this is the type of machine I’m talking about, if anybody hasn’t seen one.
http://www.cannonbeachgazette.com/2609/2609tffy.htm