Halloween and “trick or treat” are here, which means candy, candy and more candy! Every year it never fails – Halloween is exciting and with a lot of build up. When the actual day comes all of the costume planning, candy buying and pumpkin carving can sometimes go south- no one wants to be the costume they picked out, you’ve eaten half the candy the days before and the pumpkin you carved earlier in the week is now a moldy mess- sound familiar?
Last year I had two costumes for my older son. He was thrilled, couldn’t wait to be either a storm trooper or a racecar driver. The night before Halloween our youngest was thrilled about his Wild Kratts costume and was pretending to be all kinds of animals and of course I can’t believe I didn’t see it coming, boom my older son also wanted to be a Wild Kratts brother as well.
I called every Toy’s R Us remotely close to our house, finally located the costume and ran out at 8pm to get it. Some parents might say “way to go” while others might say, “that was definitely the wrong decision”. All I can say is I’m a parent and my son was heartbroken he couldn’t be a Kratts brother, which then broke my heart. Right or wrong Halloween that year was magical and amazing and both of my kids loved their costumes.
Here are some helpful tips on how to make Halloween work for your family:
Handing out Candy:
If you are handing out candy, try having a bucket of little (1-4) candy friendly-gummies, chocolate candies without nuts!, cute bags of pretzels, cheese balls in Halloween packaging or even stickers. You will get a THANK YOU from the parent as well. It’s so frustrating when you’re little one comes home, eager to chow down only to find out he can have two of the candies in his bucket.
Trick or Treat Pumpkin:
Do yourself a big favor and label your pumpkin if you’re going to a Halloween party. My family and I went to a Halloween party last year and none of us parents labeled our buckets and there was pure pandemonium as to which pumpkin belonged to which child.
Costume Chaos:
Your child doesn’t want to put on the costume you bought for them. Here are a few options I noticed other parents doing- cute Halloween t-shirts, Pajamas that were their child’s favorite super hero or princess (they are more comfortable for younger children) character.
Carved pumpkin sadness:
This year stock up on a few light up pumpkins so next year when your pumpkin goes south you have a back up plan!
Keeping your kids from eating all the candy that night:
Again I have an amazing mom community and one of my close friends has her kids hand out the candy to the neighborhood kids that trick or treat at their house. They have so much fun handing it out that they forget they want to eat the candy (make sure they keep a few of their favorites)! Brilliant!
Happy Halloween and make sure to have a fun and safe evening.
