Step Right up and Get Your Halloween Toy!

The best thing about Halloween has always been the toys, right? I mean, seriously, my kids just can’t wait to go Trick or Toying. Kids throughout the neighborhood are lining up at my front door to get a toy.

It’s all about the toys. Always has been.

You’re probably laughing right now, thinking I’ve lost it, and if you are, you’d be right. That is exactly the reaction I had when I read this article by the Associated Press this week.

The article basically suggests that people pass out toys or stickers or other such things on Halloween—anything but candy. Because candy is full of evil sugar and we can’t have our kids consuming anything so downright bad for them.

How ‘bout we give them toy guns instead?

And just in case your parental skills are really lacking, the article suggests several ways you can combat the ills of sugar-exposure.

Tactics like playing the “switch witch” with your kids. At bedtime, kids leave out as much candy as they want and the “switch witch” comes and swaps their candy for a toy. The more candy, the bigger the toy.

Or talking to them about nutrition because, you know, we don’t do that but on one night a year and kids are really in a listening mood on Halloween.

Or rationing. Whatever.

Here’s my tactic for Halloween. Send the kids out to get as much candy as they can possibly carry. When they get home, have the kids dump the lot in the middle of the floor for sorting. Grab the Baby Ruths and run.

They can eat the rest. But I know they probably won’t.

Every year, sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I clean out my kids rooms to find an entire stash of uneaten Halloween candy. I eventually throw it all out, and nobody even gives it a second thought.

By then, Halloween is a long-gone memory. The kids have moved on to Christmas and are already dreaming about the toys.