As I popped open my first St. Arnold's Spring Bock of the year, my mind turned to the passage of time. Mercurial in nature and impossible to halt, time offers us an ineffable, constant partner in life's dance.

Spring becomes summer, summer becomes fall. Winter dawns and is swallowed up by the grey beast of February. Life is at once beautiful and harsh-- the duality of the human experience so markedly poignant and rare.

And as the seasons change, so does the candy we eat.

Candy. You love it. I love it. Mandy Moore sang a song about it. Candy rules and you know it. Wilfred Brimley knows it, and now he does commercials for at-home diabetes treatment, so take a hint and don't love it too much or you'll end up with a club foot.

Every season has its own holiday we associate with it, and every holiday has its own candy. You can hate the shit out of the holiday, but you can love the candy just as much. Plus, the best part about seasonal candy is that, once the holiday is over, the candy is immediately marked half-off. That rules, too.

What follows is a list of my favorite seasonal candy, starting off right now with V-Day.

Holiday- Valentine's Day Candy- Russel Stover's Chocolates

When else do you eat these rich, overly sweet, nougat/coconut/crispy/whatever-the-hell-that- white-stuff-is-filled chocolates? Never. To me, these chocolates are synonymous with Valentine's Day. My old man always got my mom a box of these for Valentine's Day, and my brother and I would always rob her blind, leaving her the shitty coconut ones, or the ones with the caramel so tough that they'd rip your braces out.

For no other reason than sentimentality do these admittedly marginal candies make my list.

Holiday- Halloween Candy- Bottle Caps

Sue me. If you say candy corn, you are unoriginal and clearly enjoy viscous saliva. I can't get down with either of those things. I just don't jive with them, you turkey.

Bottle Caps are a seriously under-appreciated candy. I remember rooting around in the bottom of my bag, trying to come up with extra packets of Bottle Caps. Root beer-flavored, cola-flavored, grape, cherry...mmmm. Superior to Sweet Tarts, not as chewy and uninspired as Spree and certainly triumphing over any dumb fruit your neighbor tried to give out. (Honestly, why would you give me an apple? It's almost exactly the same weight and size as a baseball. You are asking for a broken window.)

Bottle Caps are a great Halloween treat, and my favorite. You never seem to see them anytime else. If anyone knows where I can get a steady supply of these badass little gems, please, hook a brother up in the comments.

Holiday- Easter Candy- Robin's Eggs

Amidst a holiday involving crucifixion, the walking dead, magic and a giant bunny who hands out effigies of itself for children to eat, one can find some of the prime seasonal candy to be had.

In fact, Easter takes the cake with the best holiday for candy. Seriously. Most things by Cadbury rule (my GF would knife somebody for mini eggs), you can get a huge variety for cheap and there's a certain tangible joy in masticating the severed head of an over-size chocolate bunny.

Robin's Eggs are my personal favorite, though. I love the crunchy malt, thin chocolate coating and crispy candy shell. I eat them until my mouth dries up and forms a crust. Then I call up Wilford Brimley and mainline some insulin and I'm good to go, again.

Also, bonus: I think this is one of the best ads ever. SFW. Cadbury's ad.

Holiday- Christmas Candy- Booze Candy

Screw Christmas.

There, I said it. You know you want to say it every time December rears its ugly head. I don't much care for any holiday that is so fraught with stress, tension and spending buttloads of money. All anybody wants is to exchange gifts and go home as soon as humanly possible. A time of giving, joy and charity invariably collapses into a two-week morass of stress, running around malls for stupid stuff no one needs and can't afford, while trying to be nice to extended family and friends that you never see and wouldn't see, voluntarily. Ugh. Get through it how you'd like. Christmas offers plenty of sweet treats, but I'll stick to booze.

Booze is great.

What are your favorite holidays, and what are the sweet treats that you associate with them?