obscure catholic saints

so I thought we were running a little late for mass on Saturday night-one benefit of being Catholic you can get Sunday mass out of the way on Saturday night-but when we arrived I noticed people lining up at the altar getting a blessing with 2(unlit) candles that are put together to form a V. It was the feast of St Blaise-I honestly don't remember much about why we get our throat blessed or what the big deal about St Blaise was I just remember in grammer school(well 5th grade and after for me I attended public school till then) we would get hauled up to the church in Feb. to have our throats blessed-and the candles our church used were dirty, nasty & greasy. My mother said she was more concerned with getting diseased than blessed. Supposedly at one point in history the candles were to have been lit when getting the blessing-or that might be an urban legend started by bored Catholic school students...