Let's Talk with Nancy J. Cohen
Let’s Talk with Nancy J Cohen
October 28, 2021
Halloween Candy
by Nancy J. Cohen
Would you believe today (Oct. 28) is National Chocolate Day? Halloween is only a few days away, so naturally my thoughts drift to the large bags of candy we’ll buy at the superstore to fill our bowl. I ignore the advice that says to buy only what we don’t like to eat. Instead, we’ll get bags filled with M&Ms, Reese’s, Snickers and Milky Ways or similar combinations. Heck, if I’m going to spend my money, I want to buy something that we’ll be happy to consume.
For the last couple of Halloweens, we got so few kids at our door that I finally said enough. We turned out the lights indicating we weren’t home and hunched in front of the TV to enjoy our shows without interruption. But now we’re in a new neighborhood that has young children. Do they Trick or Treat here? Will anyone go out in the midst of Covid? These are valid questions. We’ll give it a try, at least this once, and see what happens. Usually, we turn off the lights between 8:00 and 9:00 pm or whenever we’re ready for some peace and quiet.
I’m not thrilled about having leftover candy this year, though. Between Magical Dining month in Orlando (3-course meals for $37) and four birthday celebrations within the past several weeks, I’ve been gaining weight. I have to watch my sugar intake anyway, and eating my favorite peanut M&Ms won’t help.
What about you? Do you welcome Trick or Treaters or pretend you’re not home? Do you fill your bowl with treats that tempt you or give away the leftovers you don’t want?
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Posted in Let's Talk, with Nancy J. Cohen • Tags: Bad Hair Day Mysteries, BLB Discussion, Box Set, Halloween Candy, Happy Halloween, Let's Talk, Nancy J Cohen, Trick or Treat | 31 Comments
We do not give candy out. We had some bad experiences in the past. We are handicapped. We do not have very many children in our neighborhood. They leave this area and go else where. I try to find candy when it is on sale. My Mom lives in a nursing home. I send candy to the staff. We bought pails this year. My husband decorated little pumpkins. We filled two pails for each of my parents. Thank you for the opportunity.
I’ll bet the nursing home loves your contributions. That’s very thoughtful of you.
Oh we’re big on Halloween here! Bags and boxes of pretzels, veggie chips, candy, plastic vampire fangs,, stickers, and a special book for one lucky little witch (the book is called The Littlest Witch)! We usually get a couple hundred trick or treaters. My favorite holiday! The town called off trick or treating last year, but it’s back on big time this year. Can’t wait!
You get a lot of kids there! Those are some great ideas beside candy to give out. I like the stickers and the veggie chips. Small activity books would work too. Fun ideas!
I miss trick-or-treaters! We’ve lived out in the boonies on a dead end street for years now, and no one trick-or-treats here (you don’t go barging through someone’s closed gate in the dark in our parts). But back when we lived in suburbia, we decorated up the place and dressed up and gave out tons of candy. I still buy candy for the people at work who stop by my desk. And, yes, I buy the kinds I like!
Candy at work is a great idea. It used to be good for book events, too, but those are defunct right now.
Although we have all of about 25 kids in our neighborhood, we end up with over 300 on Trick or Treat night. We don’t hand out candy but instead give out pencils. Most kids are excited and so are their parents but of course there are those who give us the stink eye. Oh well such is life.
300 kids is an awful lot! That would be quite expensive with candy. At least they can use the pencil for homework.
Hi Nancy, So happy to celebrate National Chocolate Day with a treat from our local Schakolad store. I think some dark chocolate salted caramels are calling my name. This is our first Halloween in our condo, so I don’t know what the Trick or Treat situation will be. However, we’re very excited that the city of St. Petersburg is closing two miles of Central Avenue to traffic and holding a street fair. Hopefully, this will pave the way for more events like this in the future.
A street fair sounds like a fun idea! It’s our first Halloween here too, so we’ll see what happens. I’m trying to resist any chocolate until then.
Favorite candy is Milky Way Midnight. I do hand out candy, but we only get about a dozen children. Then we are stuck with the leftovers. I don’t put out a bowl because the teens in the neighborhood would just take it all.
Those Milky Way Midnights are really good. I don’t put out a bowl either. I’d rather dish out the treats. Plus, there’s ants around if we left it outside.
Most of our neighbors where we recently moved are empty nesters. Between that and the fact that our street is on a hill and requires people to trek up 17 steps to the front doors, I don’t expect any trick or treaters. Where we used to live, even though we had lots of kids in the neighborhood, few showed up in recent years, instead attending Halloween parties hosted by local organizations.
As for candy, I never bought my favorites. It’s too tempting, especially if at the end of the evening you wind up with most of what you bought. In recent years I opted for mini bags of pumpkin and ghost shaped pretzels to hand out.
Mini bags of treats are a great idea, and pretzels are a healthy snack. This neighborhood where we moved has a lot of young kids, so we’ll see how many show up at our door. No hilly terrain here.
We don’t have many kids in our neighborhood, and they tend to do stuff within their groups (sports teams, scouts, 4-H, youth groups and the like) instead of trick or treating. For a couple of years after we moved here I continued to buy candy, but it didn’t attract kiddos. I also buy what i like. Unfortunately I like most candies… However, sugar is not my friend, so maybe I’ll buy a couple of butterfingers and call it good!
We bought a bag at Costco. Since this is our first Halloween in this neighborhood, we have no idea what to expect.
We do welcome trick or treaters. This year trick or treat is on Sun but if there are any left overs, I eat them as well as share the candy with my family. This year we bought a bag of 135 pieces of candy and once that’s gone the light goes out signaling no more trick or treaters can come.
We turn our light out once the numbers dwindle or we get tired. I keep leftover candy in the fridge so I’m not tempted to dip into the bowl each time I pass by.
Today I made my candy foray… 2 bags but little ones with individually wrapped items so depending upon the flow, I can throw several into a trick or treater’s bag or be miserly. The bag with the bags is hidden in the pantry lest my husband start sampling too early. Our neighborhood has a lot of grandparents/retirees or young childless couples, but there are little children in the sections that were built before ours. I have no idea what to expect but i’m ready … one for them, one for me…. oh , no!
I will have to hide the leftovers in the back of our fridge so we don’t keep dipping our fingers into the bowl. I have no idea what to expect here either.
Having two small kids, we love trick-or-treaters; even if we’re not home, we leave candy out. We decorate pumpkins, do Halloween crafts, and try to enjoy the holiday before the kids grow up!
That’s so much fun with little kids. We loved pumpkin-carving time. I saved our Halloween activity books and now can pass them on to the grandson when he’s older. It’s a special time, and those photos of their early costumes are precious. Enjoy the holiday!
I leave on lights but never have trick or treaters. I always buy candy that I want. Sometimes I eat it before it becomes dark outside.
The “trick” is not to open the bag until Halloween night. Ours is sitting on the dining room table. I know if it’s opened beforehand, my husband will be walking by often to snatch a treat.
We stopped giving out candy years ago after we moved to a 55+ community in Arizona. When we returned to California, we never resumed the Trick-or-Treat tradition. About five years ago, we started going to one of the large malls where most of the stores were giving out candy. We haven’t done that in a couple of years, but maybe someday in the future.
We had quite a number of kids last night in our new neighborhood. It was fun participating. People sat in front of their homes to give out candy.
I live in a rural area and seldom have trick-or-treaters on Halloween. In 2018 I visited my cousin in Florida and had fun giving out the candy and seeing the costumes.
The costumes are so very clever these days! We gave out a lot of candy last night in our new neighborhood but still have some left over.
Trick or treaters attendance fluctuates from year to year. We give out candy that we also enjoy eating usually turn out the lights by 9:30 or 10pm. The visitors usually stop by that time.
I quit at 8:30 last night. It seemed to quiet down then and I was ready to retire. We also buy the candy we like to eat.
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