How to eat Halloween candy

I have dressed up kids and sent them out to beg for candy on Halloween night for something like 22 years. That is probably close to a Guiness record. And so now I dress up the grandkids. (One of them wants to buy some candy ahead of time and practice trick-or-treating. He says he doesn’t want to do it wrong.) But whether I hold a record or not, I know I I have done it long enough to be something of an expert, so I am speaking out.

Similarly, the National Safety Council offers all kinds of seasonal advice from what color costumes are safest to what to do so the kids won’t get lost. But nobody tells them what to do with all of that candy.

The secret to surviving Halloween candy is to let the kids eat up all of it right when they get home from collecting it. In fact, encourage them to eat it right when they get it if they can get it open. (If they are busy eating, they will have less time for amassing.) Hopefully they will have eaten a good share of it by the time they get home. Don’t let them sort or count what is left; just keep them eating. It’s easy.

Whatever you do, don’t put it on top of the fridge or try to hide it. You will just have to fight them for every piece, and do you really want kids snooping around in cupboards and closets this close to Christmas?

I know this strategy goes against every natural instinct for protecting your kids, but read on. You have yourself to consider also, you know.

There are several pitfalls that you can avoid by getting rid of that candy immediately. The first is a three-week sugar high. Granted, the one-night high will be monumental, but it will be over with by morning. You will only have to live with juiced-up kids for one night. They may have a hangover when morning comes, but at least they won’t be able to eat more candy and start the binge all over again.

You will also not have to deal with candy wrappers all over the house for more than one day. Since all of that candy has to be wrapped according to NSC standards, which means it has to be tightly wrapped, it has to be shredded in order to be removed from the candy. The pieces of wrapper will be multiplying in quantity whenever you are not looking.

I’m warning you—you will find bits of tinfoil, paper, cellophane, and sucker sticks under the beds, beneath the sofa cushions, in front of the TV, in the dryer, and you will never be through with the wrappers until Christmas when you will have to start all over again. Just finish it off, clean up the mess the next morning and be done with it.

My dentist will back me up on this. It is better for their teeth to get twenty pounds of sugar all at once and then get ruthlessly brushed than it is to keep them bathed in sugar at the rate of an ounce per hour for the next three weeks.

Don’t worry about the kids getting sick. I never had one do it on Halloween candy. But if they do, maybe they will feel like going to bed early, in spite of the sugar coursing through their veins.