I’ve been thinking a lot about Halloween and wondering if it will be cancelled this year.
I don’t have kids so I can’t even pretend to imagine how I would tell my child about why they can’t go Trick or Treating.
But, also, since I’m not a parent, but an organizer… my mind quickly shifted to “what else can be done?” and “how can this be spinned”.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I did put the question on my social media to ask “what did you like more about Halloween? The dressing up or the candy?”
Dressing up won hands down… although for me it was the candy!
I know my parents let us dress up any time we wanted. I don’t know if that is true in every household, but, it’s a great way to boost creative minds, artistic tendencies and imaginative play time. So replicating that part of Halloween should be easy. You can even create a Zoom party for the kids to show off their costumes to each other.
But the candy part… that was never easily accessible in my house (and that was back in the 70’s).
I would imaging that today parents are even less likely to have candy handy which makes Halloween and ever bigger treat.
I remember coming home and my sister and I would dump all our candy on the floor, weed out the “gross” stuff (like candy corn and molasses candy) and start trading the rest. When the task was complete, we had the perfect bag of treats that would probably last us over a month!
Yes, we had our candy rationed to a few pieces a day. Had it not been we would have stuffed our faces in the first day or two, been sick to our stomachs and probably bouncing off the walls from all the sugar!
Thinking about how much I enjoyed that got me to thinking about how that experience could be replicated if Halloween were to be cancelled.
Since kids can dress up any time, let’s concentrate on the candy. Some parents may be relieved that the October sugar bomb will not be available… but there must be a happy medium?
What if kids got the candy as a reward instead of collecting it on Halloween, they collect it for chores, or being helpful, or doing a kindness or anything else you can think of.
Get a list of your kid(s) favorite treats, add in a few of your favorites and Halloween classics and place a nice big order.
Combine everything in one big bag to mix up and then divide it amongst the kids. Let them sit together and trade until they each have their perfect batch. If they want to do that in costume even better.
Create a game or use the Bingo card I’ve included to have them collect their daily candy.
Am I being too harsh? Maybe they should just get the Halloween candy for no reason. Again, I’m not a parent however, I know I learned to appreciate things by working for them rather than receiving them for nothing.
I’d love to hear your thoughts!