Halloween Leftovers

Halloween is done. Our routine is to usually let the kids stay up late, gorge themselves on their candy and then try to get rid of it the next day. I think one year we did a “Halloween Fairy” that exchanged a toy for the leftover Halloween candy. Surprisingly, Rachel totally forgot about it this year (so did I). I’m thinking since she figured out the tooth fairy didn’t exist, trying to pass a “Halloween Fairy” over her this year probably isn’t a good idea. I’m sure Santa’s clock is ticking in her mind as well… (But I’ll put money on her deciding not to ask about it until AFTER she gets her Hanukkah/Christmas presents… Yes, we do both in this house. Our kids are spoiled.) 😛

The Halloween Fairy would probably work for Zach, but I’m trying to go for a simpler approach and convince him the candy goes bad very quickly and has to be thrown out. I’ll give them one more day of too much sugar – and then it goes OUT! We had very few trick-or-treaters and have lots of leftovers. (I bought little single-serving bags of pretzels. And NO that’s NOT why we didn’t see many people. LOL! We had the same thing happen last year and I had 4 different brands of chocolate bars to hand out!) I think the pretzels will be perfect for after-school snacks so I’m not upset about the leftovers. 🙂 (And despite their original protests, I think neither are the kids!)

Zach dressed up as Spiderman this year, and Rachel was originally going to be a butterfly, but after checking the weather, she decided to opt for a warmer, kind of ambigous “baby” costume. (The neighbors were confused. LOL! Almost everyone had to ask her what she was. Well, sorry, they just don’t make costumes keeping in mind the fact that it is the END OF OCTOBER and usually FREEZING.)

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(Here is what her costume was SUPPOSED to be)

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Very cute – but not so comfortable in 40 degree weather. (And with a coat over it – it would have been just as ambiguous as the baby costume!) 😉

Trick or cute little useless toy?

I‘ve been debating for a few weeks about the possibility of getting cute little (useless) toys to hand out at Halloween instead of candy. On one hand, not buying candy means not having something very tempting in the house that *I* am very likely to eat (and really need to NOT be eating). As well, I feel guilty handing out food I myself am trying not to eat because it’s unhealthy. (Well, at least in mass quantities anyway) 😉

My one fear is that while I will not be personally contributing to the obesity problem in our country, I’m afraid the neighborhood kids might respond by deciding to contribute to the lack of toilet paper in the area around my house. Heh.

On the other hand, what would I hand out? I could hand out fruit or something – but what?? Or some kind of little prize/toy … which would surely end up in the garbage before too long and then spend the next 100 years in a landfill somewhere…

Maybe I’ll go middle of the road… and get little packages of goldfish crackers or something. It’s not sweets, it’s not THAT bad/unhealthy, and (except for the little package/bag it comes in) it’s mostly biodegradeable…

I know at least for my own kids – the real fun isn’t even the candy they get. It’s going around, showing off their costume, getting something (anything, they don’t even care WHAT) from all the neighbors. Most of the candy gets thrown out because they don’t even like it anyway. Zach usually has one bite of each thing and then spits it out. He’s a lot of fun to hang out with on Halloween! Very appropriate for the holiday: very scary! LOL! At least something like goldfish crackers… I mean, who doesn’t like that??