Heaps of Halloween Candy

Halloween: the day that all healthy habits go out the window. Kids go around from house to house and are handed candy. (We’re giving Halloween pencils and hope not to get soaped.) Son has been told the address of a home that gives out king size candy bars, and has already scoped it out to make sure he doesn’t miss it.

It’s a healthy parent’s idea of hell.

Relax, other parents may say, it’s just one day. Let them have their fun.

Which I would accept, except it’s not just one day. It’s one night of fun and excess, which I totally get. But it’s followed by day after day of candy eating from an overflowing bag and battles with kids who don’t want to eat dinner.

To worsen matters, my children, who would never litter in public and scorn those who do, drop candy wrappers around the house like, well, like children. I’ve found gummy bear wrappers behind the couch. Nerd boxes crushed in the front bushes. And more candy wrappers than I can count in my daughter’s desk and dresser drawers.  

The first few years my kids went out trick-or-treating, they didn’t stay out long and didn’t get much candy. Then they forgot they owned it and I made it disappear. (If you want to see it, check my left buttock.) For the past couple of years, I told them they could eat as much as they wanted on Halloween night, and then it would disappear. The prospect of such extreme excess appealed, and they went for it.

I proposed that again this year, and there’s no way. They’re 11 and almost 10, and they want to hoard, trade and snack on their candy for weeks on end. I dreaded this moment.

It’s not made easier by the fact that I’ve my own struggles with healthy eating and a sweet tooth the size of a turn-of-the-century Victorian home. York peppermint patties? Nothing better than that blast of mint. Butterfingers? What I love about them is that little bits of the candy gets stuck between your teeth and then works lose when you least expect it, giving a final blast of transfat goodness.

Dark chocolate anything? I hear it’s healthy but that’s not why middle-aged ladies gravitate to it the way we don’t gravitate to the elliptical machine.

Do I sound like the kind of person who can be trusted home alone with a innocent child’s trick-or-treat bag? No, I am not.

In the end, we made a deal. They are allowed to eat what they want as they trick or treat. Any candy that would be useful for a gingerbread house is being set aside. They are then allowed to eat their candy if 1) I do not see the bag of candy; 2) I do not see a single wrapper dropped from by a heedless child in my house. For each infraction, they lose three pieces of candy, which I really really hope will be dark chocolate.

My son, who has just fact-checked the candy names in this story, suggests that parents who want their kids to eat healthy should take empty candy wrappers, fill them with a carrot stick or piece of broccoli and tape it shut. I’ll try it on his sister.