The holidays are made for candy indulgence – but does indulgence have to break the bank? We’ve attempted to discover just that in the first two parts of It Came from the Dollar Store: The Cheapo Holiday Candy Special. In Parts 1 and 2, we reviewed the tasty Whipped Creme Santa and the not-so-tasty Marshmallow Treats Santa. Now, I bring you the third and final Christmas candy from the fine folks at Dollarama: the Sugar House.

The concept behind the Sugar House is a simple one. It’s a house… made out of sugar. Lots and lots of sugar. It’s then given a gummy “occupant” – in this case, a strange little orange gumdrop man with a Santa hat and Popeye arms who seems to be radiating red icing “heat waves” – perhaps he’s an anthropomorphic flame? Is the Sucrose Shack meant to appear as if it’s in imminent danger of melting into a Caramel House? (In the company’s defense, they also do versions with a pretty decent-looking Santa and snowman.)

As if that weren’t already enough pure sugar to send anyone into diabetic shock, the house and occupant are then liberally decorated with icing. The icing detailing is actually surprisingly nice, with rainbow-colored Christmas lights and a brown chimney on the roof, blue icing “windows” on the sides, and even blue snowflakes (two shades of blue!) and white squiggles on the back of the house where they could easily have gotten away with skimping.

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We may be in the midst of a recession, but that doesn’t mean you have to abandon the pursuit of true Candy Addictedness. Welcome to Part 2 of It Came From The Dollar Store: The Cheapo Holiday Candy Special. In Part 1, we reviewed the surprisingly not-terrible Whipped Creme Santa. This second item also features the jolly old elf in candy form – this time in real marshmallow rather than gooey marshmallow creme.

The Marshmallow Treats Santa (no brand name other than “Imported by Dollarama”) is made of that dense, industrial-grade marshmallow that’s also used in those life-sized marshmallow hamburgers you used to see all over the place. It has a generic, but not unpleasant, fruity smell, reminding me of the Leftovers Gummies I reviewed at Halloween. (Seeing as those were kind of terrible, that might not be a good sign.)

Marshmallow Santa’s actually a really good-looking guy – his facial features are well-formed, not blobby, with very good color separation. With his red nose and black eyes, he bears a striking resemblance to the Santa from the old stop-motion Rudolph special. A coating of sugar adds an attractive sparkly effect.

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Christmas is a time of candy extravagance. Boxes of high-end chocolates line store shelves, and once-a-year goodies make their appearance. But with the state of the economy, can you afford to give your loved ones the gift of candy this holiday season?

SURE you can! Because there’s one place that everyone can afford to buy candy: your friendly neighborhood dollar store! But will a gift of dollar-store candy thrill your nearest and dearest… or only ensure that you yourself receive nothing but dollar-store gifts in forthcoming years? Find out in a special Candy Addict three-part series: It Came From The Dollar Store: The Cheapo Holiday Candy Special.

Around here, the most popular dollar store is the Dollarama chain, which has yielded many Candy Addict review items over the months I’ve been writing for the site. I carefully selected three items from the shelves of Christmas candy at my local Dollarama, the first of which is the Whipped Creme Santa, made by the Georgia Nut Company of Stokie, Illinois.

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