How to Deal With Halloween Candy

1811862634_7e19dedd12_zIt’s time for a serious talk about Halloween candy. By the time Halloween is over, your house will contain about 4 trillion extra calories in the form of candy. Triage is the only way to deal with this glut of sugar, and I’m here to help.

This is an intensely personal matter, so you may disagree with how I categorize candy, and your kids will probably have different likes and dislikes than my own. So use this guide merely as a example, and feel free to make it your own.

Level 1: Premium Candy

This is the candy that you need to remove from your child’s bucket and put in a safe place, either for co-opting for your own enjoyment (aka stealing) or for hardcore bribery. If you are lucky to have picky kids like mine, they won’t even mind that you’re taking all of their Snickers and Reese’s Peanut Butter cups because peanuts are protein and therefore slightly healthy, and they’re having none of that.

However, if your kids have better taste than mine, you are going to have to be sneaky about it. I’ve heard “The Switch Witch” is a strategy for this, but I haven’t tried it yet.

Level 2: Everyday Good Stuff

This is where most people categorize the Smarties, the Sweetarts, caramels, the slightly less than name brand chocolates (Sixlets, anyone?) and the tiny bags of candy corn.

6936138520_0880f3bded_zAhh, this is the stuff that gets me through the difficult nights. The meatloaf dinners that otherwise wouldn’t get touched. The trips to the Zoo where the only way you can get them off Monkey Hill is to promise a piece of candy. (Yes, I am in the running for Mother of the Year.) Like the Level 1 candies, these need to be moved to a place that is not easily accessed by the kids (or you, if your sweet tooth is anything like mine.)

Level 3: Only If You’re Desperate

You know, those weird hard candies, peppermints, anything wrapped in waxed paper, gummy eyeballs and off-brand chocolate wrapped in foil. And gold coins.

These languish in the bottom of the buckets until mid-January (if you’re me) or Thanksgiving (if you’re a more responsible parent) when you finally toss them out because you realize even you never get this desperate.

Level 4: Even a Sugar Fiend Like Me Won’t Touch This

Tootsie Rolls. Enough said. Lucky for me (and our dentist), my kids love them.

What’s your favorite Halloween candy? What about your kids?

Pam Kocke
My name is Pam, and I live in Algiers Point with my husband George and my identical triplets Linus, Oliver, and Miles. I work from home as a Happiness Engineer for Automattic. I enjoy reading and photography and sewing (and blogging!)

8 COMMENTS

  1. One of my four-year-old twins asked for a “little cylinder candy for my snack” this morning. She apparently has gotten to this age without ever having heard the words, “Tootsie Roll.”

    Unfortunately they can identify a peanut butter cup from a mile away, so we have to be VERY careful extracting those from their bags without them noticing.

  2. This is hilarious! What about those gross peanut butter mystery clumps? (oh I guess they file under things wrapped in wax paper….)

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