Halloween candy gets dusty if kids' diets aren't limited or controlled. If a child goes trick-or-treating but isn't desperate for every bit of sugar he can grab, and if the parents don't take the candy away from him or make rules about how much he can eat, he'll eat some and the rest will probably be thrown away around Christmas.
photo by Sandra Dodd in Ashford, Surrey, not near Halloween
Those spots near the top of the photo are raindrops. LITTLE raindrops. In New Mexico, raindrops are big. You SEE them, feel them, hear them. One big raindrop on a camera lens would show. It would likely cover the whole lens. In England, rain somehow combines with the air in a sneaky fashion.
ReplyDeleteMy son says: "yes, it's true, my sweets often lasted until Christmas and even more."
ReplyDeleteI limited sugar and sweets when my children were younger, but after a while, I realized that it served nothing but feed their desire for it, while if free, they ate what they wanted and then stopped ... as me, as everyone else. They were sharing the stuff they don't like or had too much with their father, "sweeting" his day working.
Happy Halloween!
Edith
I remember being at a friends house and she told Austin he could have as many candy corns as he wanted; a candy we restricted because it was all sugar and food coloring. He started shoveling it into his mouth and putting it into any pocket he had. I remember looking at him and thinking that is what desperation looks like. It took some work on my part, but I started letting go of candy fear. Now we have a bag of Reece's cups, bags of jelly bellies and a bag of candy corn in the pantry. Some have been there for a month or longer.
ReplyDeleteI was also thinking about writing a candy post today. I remember when my oldest daughter was 2 and we'd gone trick or treating and she had a huge bag of candy. I was so tormented about how to deal with all that sugar and the thoughts of what would surely happen to her teeth. The next day we ran into a friend who said that she'd dumped the who tub of her daughter's candy in the trash and told her daughter that the dog had eaten it. That was my first experience in how cruel parents can be about what is supposed to be a fun holiday. I was determined right then to not be cruel about Halloween candy, and we just let our tub of candy sit in the kitchen until it ended up in the garage getting dusty. 3 years later I was blessed with a Halloween baby. This weekend we will be going to two different all-town Halloween carnivals, hosting a birthday party, and trick-or-treating. It should be so much fun!! And the candy will most definitely get dusty, yet again. (I've learned to freeze it, so it stays fresher longer, and you can pull it out in July. :)
ReplyDeleteAs I type this my 2 boys halloween candy bags sit in the front room, both about 1/4 full, neither one having been touched in about 2 weeks.
ReplyDeleteSad part is that the 2 neighbor kids were over playing the other day and noticed the bags and exclaimed "you still have halloween candy!?" One said "my mom ate most of mine and now it's all gone", and the other one said "my mom threw away most of mine because she said I shouldn't be eating that junk":(
The same boy that said the last quote, will abstain from any candy if there is an adult around, but when he's by himself or with just the other kids will gorge on it:(
Julie, don't be sad. Think of it as evidence that you're doing something different and good. We can't save the whole world, but we DO change it a little, and we change our own families' lives a LOT!
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