Halloween, or, You Have to Choose

I just read this article, http://segullah.org/daily-special/boo-humbug/ which I thoroughly enjoyed and mostly agreed with. I too am "Boo Humbug!"

It seems like everything is so over the top these days. And Halloween is one of those things that I can only stand in really, really small doses.

But basically, what I think it comes down to, is that no matter what you choose to do, you have to be purposeful about it.

Husband and I have discussed the options and come up with what we feel works best for our family.

We do a very minimal amount of Halloween decorating. The paper-plate skeleton and two jack-o-lanterns are it. I wouldn't have even done the skeleton, but the kids begged and I thought it would be a good family-bonding-time craft.

The kids have to choose their costumes from out of our dress-ups.

We only go trick or treating once, on Halloween day so we skip out on second, third, and fourth options for trick-or-treating and costume wearing.

I made really small Halloween bags, and when the bags are full (usually about an hour of trick-or-treating) we are done. (I am just going to say it "What the heck is the deal with pillow cases for candy collecting?")

Here's how I have solved the candy problem. The day after Halloween, my kids and I dump all the candy into a bowl and sort it into piles. This relieves their need to check out and discuss what they collected. Then they are each allowed to choose 10 candies to keep. We go one at a time starting with the youngest and each child takes one candy each round. This way, they get a fair chance to get what they really wanted. Plus they get lots of anticipation time while they wait for their siblings to choose. This really does make the candy taste better, I swear! :) Taking only 10 candies means that I can handle it if they eat all their candy in one day, but it is a great opportunity to talk about delayed gratification and the pleasure of making it last.

So what do we do with all the extra candy? I'm glad you asked. We put it into a box and tuck it into the back of the pantry and save it for decorating our gingerbread houses which is a favorite Christmastime tradition around here. My kids love making ggb houses and more candy means that they can make them even cooler. And if all of the chocolate candy doesn't make it til December...oh well. ;)

More Jilly Art

I am not a Halloween person. So my kids are really disappointed that I haven't done any decorating for Halloween. They decided to make their own decorations and tape them to the house. Molly wouldn't let Jill cut these out and hang them outside because she said they were too cute. (I kind of agree with Molls, these are some pretty cute witches!)

Here's how their decorations look taped to the house. (They are those little white things next to the windows...)