Just eat it.
I agree. I have sort of a sweet tooth, so that’s one of the things I’ve given up on this paleolithic diet, but I figure if I’m going to break the diet, I might as well do it whole hog and get it out of my system. As the dentist in the article says, it’s better for the teeth to eat all the candy at once than to have a steady diet of it for weeks. The same goes to the glycemic effects, I think. If I overdo it on salt or sugar in a single meal, I can get back to the routine within a day or two. Also, I bought dark chocolate Hershey’s kisses, which the kids might not like as much, but will be heart healthy for me if I have leftovers.
[Update, a while later]
It is dusk, and the streets are empty.
This just validates my long-standing thesis that Halloween has been taken over from the kids, who used to go trick-or-treating, and used to be free range, to the adult baby boomers, who don’t want to grow up.
Maybe where you live. I just got back from taking my son trick or treating, and there were a lot of kids out.
There were a few kids out (maybe 30-40 stopped by our place), but nowhere near the crowds I remembered from when I was their age.
I am currently living in an apartment complex with no way to turn off the outside lights; so the complex doesn’t do trick or treating. I took my son to a nearby neighborhood. The coverage was spotty–the first street we went up only had a few houses lit and we only saw 2 or 3 other kids. The next street was packed, though, and one house had a very nice tunnel of doom setup. The subdivision I used to live in had spotty observance too–the few streets near mine had almost no houses participating, but walk 5 blocks and there were dozens of kids.
Solid-fuel steam-powered electric generator for the alternative energy win.
I seem to remember that when I was an active trick or treater I’d generally be home around 9-ish and would help with the passing out of stuff till 11 or so when the last die-hards would appear. Next day being a school day and all most of the time had a bit of a damping effect.
If it was a Friday I’d get home to watch 12 o’clock high and possibly the Mighty Carson Art Players.
Parents are lazy these days, they don’t want to walk around for four hours.
This may be a shock, but I never went trick-or-treating with my parents.
And yet, somehow, I survived.
Hopefully you went by yourself or with friends then 🙂
This just validates my long-standing thesis that Halloween has been taken over from the kids, who used to go trick-or-treating, and used to be free range, to the adult baby boomers, who don’t want to grow up.
That’s one possible explanation.
Another might be that there was a rash of reports concerning dangerous tampering with Halloween candy, some time back, causing a shift in customs away from door-to-door solicitation toward organized parties in safer, more controlled environments.
I’m just saying.
Of course, as people point out every year (look, I’m doing it now!) there’s no documented cases of candy tampering.
Which is completely irrelevant, Rick. Whether the reports were real or not, parental and community fears were real.
There are no documented cases of US Senators or elderly grandmothers committing terrorist acts against airliners, either — but how they were treated certainly changed after 911.
Also, if old movies and TV shows are any guide, costume parties were fairly common a few decades back — and not only at Halloween.
A common gag involved someone showing up at a formal event thinking it was a costume party. That gag wouldn’t have made sense if adults didn’t attend costume parties.
Perhaps, Edward. All I can say is that based on anecdotal evidence, in some places, trick or treating is just as popular as it’s always been, and in some places it’s virtually absent.
It doesn’t matter
What you had for lunch
Just eat it…
Back when I was a kid I’d always save part of the loot for
Guy Fawkes nightmy birthday. Remember, remember the Fifth of November, the gumballs, Reese’s and Brach’s…At my house we don’t give out candy on Halloween, we give out cheap plastic toys. Spider rings are very popular with the kids. Had mostly young kids tonight, but a few older kids and a couple adults(?) in costume collecting.
I like Non Sequitur’s holiday celebration.
http://cdn.svcs.c2.uclick.com/c2/3f631ab0e176012e2fb000163e41dd5b
Heart of the City has the aftermath covered.
http://cdn.svcs.c2.uclick.com/c2/d5192360debd012e2fb000163e41dd5b
We live in a small neighborhood, but there ARE kids here. I had candy from LAST year, we bought only one bag to supplement what we’d eaten since last year, and this is our SECOND year with not even one kid coming to the door.
Next year I doubt I’ll even bother buying candy.
My mother has been in her house long enough that the neighborhood has turned over from kids everywhere, to grown kids moving away, to kids being around again.
She got 4 or 5 kids. Personally I think it’s another sad loss to our culture that it’s going away.
Here in the Chicago suburbs, we got TONS of kids this year, many more than last year. I bought 8 bags of 50 mini-candy bars each, and gave out two per kid in the early part of the day, and as the candy started to run out, I cut back to one per kid. The younger ones were accompanied by their parents, the older ones usually were not. This is not far from one of the Tylenol murders, and while trick-or-treating dipped after that, it certainly never went away, and it seems to be back stronger than ever here. I think it really depends on where you live and, as you point out, for neighborhoods with low-turnover, it depends what part of the cycle the neighborhood is in.
My wife and I find reasons to avoid being home during normal T&T hours. For one, it saves us big on candy.
Or it would, if I didn’t always insist on having some just in case we don’t get away in time, or come home too early.
We live in the country so never a huge turnout, but only one last year and none this year. I’ll be eating Halloween candy until Easter. Yum. 🙂
Best place to avoid ever having to risk trick-or-treaters: the boonies around Fairbanks, Alaska. By Halloween it’s already below freezing until March, and often on Halloween night it’s below zero.
When we lived up there the indoor shopping malls (four in Fairbanks proper, another in nearby North Pole) might stage a trick-or-treat night, but wandering the streets was out of the question even in town.
54 kids at our house (my wife counted), most between 7 and 7:30. We had been cowards for the last few years and arranged to be out, but this seems down from where we used to be, and fewer really young kids (one group of teens didn’t even dress up). Very peaky–only a few after 8 and nobody after 8:30. I blame the new rules for DST. I’m not sure how yet, but there must be something.
Trick or Treating basically disappeared with the folks spending time on the front porch. I remember as a young kid in Chicago, and later Berwyn how folks used to spend their evenings sitting on porches and talking, the original social networking. On Halloween the folks sitting on the porch would have the candy out and would be handing it to the kids doing Trick or Treaty. And you stopped at each house as they would feel hurt if you passed them by. And you didn’t need a parent to go with you as everyone in the neighborhood knew you and watched out for you. Nor did you get into misbehave as the news would reach home before you did 🙂 It was a much different society.
But as air conditioning made strides in adoption and Cable TV arrived folks spent less time on porches and less time getting to know their neighbors.
Eating all those sweets at once – and then only rarely, such as at Halloween – is probably how our Paleolithic ancestors ate sweets, too. Only occasionally would they stumble upon really sweet food, and it would quickly be devoured. Therefore, gorging on candy on Halloween dovetails with the Paleolithic diet.
I note that Firefox considers “Hallowe’en” the incorrect spelling. Curious.
I understand the concept behind giving, but trick and treat is really about begging and taking. If a parent wanted to inspire a giving attitude, they’d buy candy and have tell their children to stay home to pass it out. If they take them around to beg for it, then let them eat it.
However, a local dentist had a great idea. The dentist actually promotes eating the candy, but figures that many kids will get far more than they need to eat anytime soon. So the dentist asked parents to bring in some of the excess, which the dentist then will package and send to troops overseas. That’s pretty smart diplomacy, if you know what soldiers giving out candy does to hearts and minds.
Our neighborhood is pretty active. A few teenagers get together and set up spooky graveyards and the like. I find it funny, though, that events like the Air&Space Museum’s Air and Scare (held each year the Saturday before Halloween at the Udvar-Hazy Center) are called ‘safe trick or treating’, like in the past all of us got murdered or something.