My daily diet looks like this…
Breakfast. Peanut butter toast. And milk with a splash of chocolate milk thrown in for good measure.
Lunch. Spinach wrap filled with deli meat and cheese, with a LARGE side of cheez-its. Followed by 4 dark chocolate Hershey’s kisses for dessert.
Dinner. Whatever leftovers I can find. Followed by 4 dark chocolate Hershey’s kisses for dessert.
Are you noticing the theme?
Which means I’m pretty excited about Halloween and ALL THE CHOCOLATE it will entail. If my kiddos are feeling particularly generous and want to score brownie points with me and their daddy by handing over some of their haul.
The thing is our neighborhood is SUPER generous and hands out A TON of candy. (Also, red wine for the mommas – cheers!)
So even when the boys are into SHARING IS CARING, I’m still left with the November arguments over HOW MANY PIECES OF BROCCOLI DO I HAVE TO EAT BEFORE I CAN EAT 10 MILKY WAYS? Or HOW MANY PIECES OF PIANO DO I HAVE TO PLAY BEFORE I CAN DROWN MY ANTI-PIANO-PLAYING TEARS WITH 13 STICKS OF GUM?
Which leads me to my favorite tips for getting rid of all this deliciousness.
5 ways to get rid of the candy
Here’s how I recommend burning through your kiddo’s Halloween candy this year. Without actually burning it.
1. Eat it.
This is the traditional approach. In our house that means #RockStarDad and I stand around looking at all the skittles and dark chocolate with a wistful look in our eyes. Until a small child notices and takes pity on us and hands it over. AKA, sharing is caring.
2. Switch Witch it.
I can’t vouch for this. It’s not practiced in our house. But here’s my understanding of how this works.
You tell the kids to leave out their candy the night of Halloween and then a Switch Witch arrives at midnight to cast a spell and turn all the candy into some toys or money or clothes or oranges.
Planning is required for this one. You have to have the new goodies on hand to make this happen. You also have to explain how this works to the little people so they are on board and aren’t confused about why their candy disappeared and there are oranges left in its place.
3. Hide it.
This worked when my kids were preschool age. I haven’t tried this since they entered elementary school and can count and create graphs tracking how many tootsie rolls they got vs. the number of fruit chews.
This one was actually a surprise. After we let them indulge in sweets post-trick or treating for an hour, we told them it was time to put the candy away and (try) to go to bed. We literally opened up a cabinet while they watched us from the kitchen table and put the candy bowl in it and closed the door.
The next day, there was no candy to be seen. And NO ONE EVER ASKED about it. So weird. So awesome! Then hubby and I referred back to idea #1 above and ate all of it. Ha ha ha ha!
4. Give it away.
Extend Halloween for the kiddos by dressing them up in costumes one final time and take them to the local nursing home to deliver treats to the old folks. Whole new twist on SHARING IS CARING!
5. Color with it.
Yes, you read that right. I’m totally serious.
During pandemic remote “learning,” we did kitchen science experiments with candy. Our favorite one was to divide all the M&M’s by color into various bowls and then pour water into each bowl. The water turned all kinds of lovely shades. The boys then used syringes to suck up the colored water and fling in onto blank sheets of paper to make art. Super fun!
On the other hand, if your littles happen to get any dark chocolate M&M’s, feel free to mail ’em to me – the candy, not the kiddos. There’s no use wasting such precious goodness by turning it all into watery creations.
What are your tips for burning through the Halloween candy stash? Share them below or on Facebook at MothersRest.
Photo credit, featured image: Charles Parker on Pexels
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS
I’m loving these tips mommas shared on Facebook.
We let our boys have a couple pieces/day for the first few days after Halloween. Then we trade them and they can buy a new piece of sports equipment (basketball, football, frisbee, etc). My husband and I take all the leftover candy (except the peanut butter cups đ) and leave it in the break rooms at work.
Take my mom tax every chance I get đ
Thatâs your sisterâs candy. Thatâs your brotherâs candy. If you want to trade, it has to be agreed upon by both sides or the conversation is over. I donât want to hear it. I eat whatever I want. The end.
This is kind of my parenting philosophy in general, too đ€Ș
I just let them have a complete free for all and eventually theyâre all so sick of candy they donât fight about it đ€Łđ€Ł
We have a âswitch witchâ that comes 2 days after Halloween and the kids leave their candy outside the front door and she she leaves them a toy – always a good toy so they want to play! And we give candy to the teachers at school đ
Weâve done the Great Pumpkin foreverâŠtheyâre calling it the Switch Witch. I told my kids the Great Pumpkin would take their candy away and leave a present. They get to keep like 10 pieces. I also told them that not everyone does it and if you donât leave out your candy you donât get anything and thatâs why most kids donât know about it.
I just read a great blog post about this: https://centerforbodytrust.com/lets-talk-halloween-candy/
This is a group that does work around unlearning diet culture and weight stigma – a great read! In years past Iâve been SO controlling about my kidâs candy, but Iâm changing it all up as I learn intuitive eating and how to help my kids return to intuitive eating.