What do you do with all the candy?

If you’re like my family, who loves Halloween—dressing up and trick-or-treating with friends—but doesn’t love all the candy and sickness that invariably follows, you might want to try what our family does. After trick-or-treating, we let our girls eat some candy. (If you’re going to trick-or-treat, you have to at least have some! If you want to make sure your kids only eat certain types of candy though, say made with organic ingredients, you can always buy the candy you approve of beforehand and switch their candy once you get home before they eat any. We have friends who do this and it works great for their family.) Whatever is left over, which is usually still a ton, gets left in their bags and left out for the Switch Witch. During the night, the Switch Witch comes and “switches” out the candy for noncandy items. No more worry about oversugared kids for the next week or two that it normally takes your kids to get through all that candy.

Here are some ideas of things the Switch Witch can “switch” the candy out for:

• new mittens, scarf, fun Halloween socks
• Halloween pencils/pens, notebooks, stickers
• something small your kids have been asking for (one year my daughter really wanted a wallet and the Switch Witch brought her a cute kitty one)
• travel game if you will be traveling for Thanksgiving
• book
• small craft kit
• money

Really, it can be anything. Our family stays with just a few small fun things that will make the girls feel the exchange was worthwhile.

If the Switch Witch doesn’t resonate with your family, but you would still like to do something other than have your kids eat the candy, you can take a look here, here, and here. (My daughter’s first grade teacher sent these suggestions out.)