We had a fun Halloween! It started with a trip to the pumpkin patch earlier in October...
There was a costume parade at school...
In the afternoon Aunt Jennifer and Cousin Margaret came over to help carve the pumpkins...
Then it was finally time for Eli Robin Hood (and Papa Banana) to venture forth for Trick-or-Treating...
Woo hoo! Loot!
Eli sorted by color and then by shape, stacking and restacking (while munching). It was great that he was having so much fun! But...um...what do you do when your kindergartner owns five pounds of sugar?!
We've taken Eli Trick-or-Treating every year of his life, but we're lucky that so far he's never asked about the candy the next day. (The first three years he didn't even ask to eat the candy after he got it!) We always put the candy away after Halloween night hoping out of sight meant out of mind -- which seems to have worked. Regardless, I felt like he might start asking for it and I certainly didn't want to start picking out of the bag.
I'd heard about candy buy-backs where health food stores, pediatricians, or dentists purchase Halloween candy for kids. One in our town offers $1 per pound and then ships the candy to troops deployed overseas. Eli would get money, the house would be free of too much sugar, and those in the military missing out on holidays back home could enjoy it. Win/win/win!
I floated the idea to Eli and he instantly wanted to do it. (Whew!) We agreed to go after school, so that morning I went through our pantry and pulled out all the leftover candy and wrapped treats I could find leftover from birthday parties and such. Anything fresh enough for the troops to enjoy went into the stash!
Eli dumped his haul into a big collection bucket at the dentist office...
Despite the fact that we just walked in off the street, they were super nice and friendly.
Part of the swap is that I told Eli I'd match what the dentist gave him. Along with some money relatives sent him in Halloween cards, he had enough to buy a Lego set. I took him to the toy store and let him look as long as he wanted.
I hope he'll want to do the candy buy-back again next year!
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