What’s Your Post-Halloween Candy Strategy?
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May everyone have a safe and happy Halloween tonight! We talked about whether or not to dress up with your kids for Halloween a few weeks ago, but here’s one more fun Halloween-related question: What’s your post-Halloween candy strategy — what are you doing with Halloween candy after Halloween?
Will you (or another caregiver) check the Halloween candy over for razor blades, like I remember my parents doing in the ’80s (or METH (?!), which is apparently a thing now)? (Insert horrified emoji…) Will you pay your kids for their candy? (A lot of dentists’ offices accept candy around now — some even pay for Halloween candy!) Bake a crazy Halloween candy pie? Let them pick a few pieces of candy every day but forsake all other desserts?
I have fond memories of coming back from trick or treating and eating a metric ton of Halloween candy that night, but my kids haven’t done that because we’re usually whisking them off to bed and don’t want to load them up with sugar.
(Also, my older son is always at the top of the weight charts, so it just feels irresponsible to let him go to town on his candy… meanwhile, the younger one isn’t into any candy that isn’t a gummy.)
I will probably go through my kids’ candy tonight if only to weed out all the things they can’t eat (or can’t eat without supervision, like Jawbreakers or Warheads), and maybe tomorrow or this weekend, I’ll try to offer my older son some money for his candy, if only to clean out the snack drawer a little!
Ladies, what’s your post-Halloween candy strategy? (Plus, what are your kids going as this year?)
Picture from the Griffin archives — all rights reserved. :)
Two piece a night til its gone. I would like to just let her go to town on it and have it over faster, but my husband is a control freak.
She normally gets a piece or two of candy or a cookie after dinner all year long though. She eats a varied and balanced diet and is a healthy size. My mom never demonized sweets, and while I liked them as a kid, I don’t have much of a sweet tooth as an adult.
It goes in the treat bowl, and she’ll usually ask for a piece after dinner, (often in the week or so after Halloween, then she naturally seems to fade out) or I’ll stick one in her lunchbox randomly for a treat. I also stash some of my favorites in my desk at work.
I do weed out anything sour, gum, and most of the gummies, as they’re not my kid’s favorites, and send them to a local group who ships candy to the troops. I’d rather they go to a good cause then get dumped in the garbage sometime around Easter when I declare it too gross to keep.
We have a big canvas bag that we dump all random excess candy into (who knew having kids would bring so many opportunities for random excess candy!). The kids usually get a small treat if they eat lunch and dinner well, and “candyouttathebag!” is a favorite request. Just one piece at a time, though we’ll allow a few pieces on Halloween. I also grab some of my favorites for my work stash.
Since we just keep adding candy (by the time the Halloween stash is even starting to fade, we’re well into Christmas candies, then Easter), we sort of just always have the bag o’candy. I’m sure that there’s stuff from last Halloween in there now, so I plan to dump it tonight!
I’ll probably let Kiddo “go to town” on candy tonight, but it would surprise me if he eats more than I’d allow him anyways (4-5 pieces). He’s pretty good at stopping when he’s satisfied, and judging by the photos I’m getting from daycare, he’s already eating treats at their Halloween party.
After that, we’ll go with 2 treats/night, after dinner or 2 pieces during snack time on the weekends. And the candy will likely substitute for other desserts or treats for a while, at least until he’s over the excitement.
I have a 6 year old and an 8 year old. Last year, I let them eat as much as they wanted with the hope that they would get sick and learn a lesson. Is a evil? Then a piece are candy for dessert for the next week or so. The rest was donated to my church’s food pantry. Who doesn’t like treats? The kids did the donating.
Mine is almost 5. She gets to choose her dessert every night, which is usually yogurt or applesauce and occasionally cookies if we have made them for some reason. After a Halloween party this weekend, she’s been choosing one candy from her bucket. It hasn’t yet occurred to her to ask for more or more frequently, but I am sure that is coming in the next year! It blows my mind that she can eat a single vanilla-flavored tootsie roll and call it a win!
Our kids get a piece in their lunch sporadically, and one or two in the evening for a few weeks. The day after thanksgiving we unwrap all that is left and use it to decorate our gingerbread houses. My kids now are so used to this plan that my younger son was “saving” pieces from trunk or treat this weekend for his house (this lollipop will be perfect for my chinmney mom!). Anything that doesn’t get used gets thrown away. Unless it’s chocolate :)
My kids and husband don’t have sweet tooths (teeth?) so we all have a couple of pieces a day for dessert after dinner or I pack some pieces in lunch. Right before Thanksgiving I usually donate whatever is left to my co-worker who makes little treat bags for college kids during exam time. Works perfectly and I don’t end up eating toooo much of it!
Kiddo just turned 3. This is the first year that I feel like I need a strategy. There is SO. MUCH. CANDY. And she asks for it all day. My preference is to let her have a piece after daycare (which is about an hour before dinner) and as dessert after a well-eaten meal (dinner on weeknights and lunch/dinner on weekends). On Saturday (my husband’s office had a Halloween event Friday), by about 10:30 a.m., I was so sick of discussing it that I gave in and let her have some.
I’m trying to figure out the best way to get it out of the house within a few weeks. She definitely doesn’t forget it is there and inherited my huge sweet tooth.
My kid is older and has been trick-or-treating with friends for several years. At the end of the night, they have a lot of fun sorting and trading their candy. A lot of unwanted pieces get handed off to the friend whose mother pays her to give up her candy. Whatever comes home gets sorted through again to weed out damaged packages, items forbidden by the orthodontist, and all but a couple of pieces that contain artificial colors. Kiddo gets to pick out one fun-sized or two bite-sized pieces per day until Thanksgiving, when the remainder disappears. We usually don’t allow more than one sugary treat per day, so if she wants another treat she has to forgo her candy that day.
We are going to trade 50 pieces of candy for one toy for my 3 and 5 yos. Last year, we let the kids have one piece every night after dinner, and we were going literally until Christmas, which was not inherently bad (we usually have some kind of small dessert), but just got annoying.
I just wanted to share that apparently poisoned candy and related candy threats are apparently almost entirely urban legend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoned_candy_myths
We aren’t too strict about it. 2 of our 3 have decent self control and will stop at a piece or two. Our middle child would devour everything tonight if we let her. I’m honestly at the point where I may just let her have at it and experience the consequences in an effort to turn her off candy for a while. It might be less painful than the constant arguing and negotiating about it. I’ll go through the candy with them tonight to make sure there is nothing potentially dangerous in there. Anything that is opened or needs to be eaten with supervision gets thrown out. They’ll get to have a few pieces tonight and put one in their lunch tomorrow and Friday. I’m sure they’ll get into it after school this week no matter how we try to hide it or ration it. If, by some miracle, there is still candy left this weekend, it will end up in the piñata for my daughter’s birthday party next week.
One year I doled it out a piece at a time, the next I let him have one after school, two after dinner, but it lasted forever and he was constantly Cnady Mom, I want Candy! And then came the year that I let him sit and eat it. and I mean gorge on it. he walked away from his loot and never looked back.