Subscribe to My Newsletter
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter. I don’t send any spam email ever!
Halloween Candy Swap
When I was a kid, I had a candy drawer. I do not remember having restrictions on the amount of candy that I consumed. But I would say my candy consumption was normal; nothing to worry about. My husband said his candy habit was through the roof when he was a kid. He ate everything under the sun.
We try to raise our kids somewhere in the middle. I bake often, so there is never a lack of sweet treats in this house. For some reason, the sugar in baked goods and the sugar in candy seems different in my head. So we don’t really limit the baked goods as much as we limit the candy. In fact, it was a long time before my kids ate candy. I know it seems overly strict, but we wanted to prolong it as long as we could.
My kids each have their own stash of candy. On the weekends, they are allowed to dip into the stash. The candy stash accumulated from holidays, gifts, birthday goodie bags, and care packages from my mother -in-law. It is definitely more than what we prefer them to have.
As a result, when Halloween rolls around, we do what we call the Halloween Candy Swap. Seeing as how my kids have more candy than they can consume before expiration dates hit, I do not have any problems limiting their Trick-or-Treating loot. Here's what we do.
The kids go trick-or-treating on Halloween night. When we return home, they go through their candy buckets. Each child is allowed to keep the same amount of candy pieces as the age that they will turn on their next birthday. For example, if the child is 7, that child will get to keep 8 pieces of candy. The rest goes to my mom as a swap. She then takes the candy and gives them small presents in return. These presents could be anything from books to stuffed animals, small toys, or clothes. Nothing extravagant, but exciting enough to warrant the swap.
Now I know some of you are thinking that sounds a little harsh. Remember that they get candy from a bunch of other places, so they do end up with quite a bit on Halloween.
We also started doing a taste test. Since my kids don't eat a lot of candy, there are still a bunch of "new" candies in their bags that they haven't tried. So we let them do a tase test before making their elimination decisions. They enjoy this because it allows them to make informed decisions and not "waste" one of their pieces on something they don't like. It is also that much more candy that they get to consume.
I am not sure how long this Halloween Candy Swap will last. But I will keep on doing it as long as the kids keep going along with it.