Here comes Halloween! Candy,candy,candy! Makes my teeth ache just thinking about it.  I was the type of kid who had Halloween candy left at Easter.  Drove my sister nuts!  What she saw as hoarding, I saw as saving (for what, I’m not sure, probably just to torture her!).  My kids like candy and all things sweet, but they are a bit like me, the first few days after Halloween are great – treats every day, but it wears off pretty soon and my kids’ candy sits around getting “in my way” (very difficult to refuse a mini aero when I’ve walked past it five times and no one is watching).

The overload of candy coming in at Halloween also has to be dealt with from an allergy perspective.  Mini chocolate bars seem to be the most common treat given out at Halloween and many of them are peanut free and say so on the wrapper (Mars has a dedicated peanut free facility in Canada).  Problem for us is, no mini chocolate bar is dairy free so most of the candy G collects, he can’t have.

We’re lucky we have two kids.  On G’s first night of Trick or Treating we set up a tradition that has worked really well.  When the boys get home they dump out their candy and the trading begins. By the end of it G is usually trading four mini chocolate bars for one yellow lollipop, but he doesn’t mind, they both always end up with far more candy than they could/should eat.

For a couple of years I traded all the kids’ their uneaten candy near the end of November for a fancy battery powered tooth brush of their choice.  Don’t think that would fly now.  My eldest is 17 and he is planning on going out with a couple of friends to Trick or Treat.  I warned him people might think he’s too old, but he’s stoked about his costume and wants to show it off and have fun with his friends.  G is going out too as Queen Elizabeth and like his brother just wants to go out and have fun with his friends.  I think for both of them the candy haul has become secondary.  Well, I guess I’ll find out at Easter…