11/1/09

Before

Darth, Sylvester, and Green Power Ranger (Z chose to be the same thing he was last year! It was fantastic.)

After

Checking out the booty. We had a great night. It was the first time I got to go trick-or-treating with the kids. I'm usually stuck at home handing out candy. The weather was fabulous--considering we had a blizzard 3 days ago--warm with lots of leaves to crunch through. My brother met up with us and joined the festivities, and Buddy experienced the joy of barking at kids wearing weird costumes.

Now I'll let you in on a dark family secret: we buy our kids' candy off of them. I think I've explained this before, but I get tired of those piles of candy lingering on into December. When we get back from trick-or-treating, we have our kids paw sort through the sugar bounty and keep whatever they want. Really, we don't force them to give anything up. But the lure of 10 cents per item is fairly strong, and without fail the kids wind up keeping a handful of candy and "selling" the rest to us. I like teaching them that a little candy is OK, and there's value in making healthy choices. Stupid? Maybe. But in one week we'll be done with our Halloween candy and that is music to my ears.

4 comments:

Christina said...

I like the candy purchase idea. I'll have to keep that one in my bag for future years...

Vivi said...

Nope, good idea to buy the candy from them. I wonder if my kids would go for that? Maybe when they're old enough to understand the value of money a little better...love the idea of getting rid of it sooner rather than later!

AnnMarie & Nick said...

I LOVE your idea of buying candy from my kids but until they get smarter I'll just continue to take it from them:)

Truth be told, I let the kids have a few pieces each day then I end up taking it to school and bribing the middle schoolers with it.

Old Men Reflect said...

Is not fair. How can they grow up to look like me, if you take some of the candy away?