 |
| Don't drop the popcorn ball on Halloween treats, Friends! |
I'm not tryin' to be all judgy today, or make fun of what you might love giving out to trick-or-treaters. I just wanna get ya to think about what you're handing out on that magical Halloween Night! (Psssst! It's on a FRIDAY this year! How about that?!) I mean, do you remember that Halloween in Grumpy Old Men where Walter Matthau forgets it's Halloween and ends up giving out laundry detergent and a stapler?
You don't want that to be you.
While you don't want to phone in your Halloween treats completely, Friends, you also don't hafta knock yourself the heck out, either. You don't hafta spend the whole entire week before making iced sugar cookies to hand out. You don't hafta labor over popcorn balls made with from-scratch salted caramel, unless you really, really wanna, and also, as long as you live in an area where you won't get looked at weird for handin' out homemade goodies. It's a sad truth that the world we live in now is fulla crazies that have ruined the Homemade for us all.
So what's a Grown-Up to do, to give out Halloween treats? Lots!
If you're not all hung up on the whole sugar thing, we Kids love candy. Fun-size candy bars, little packages of M&Ms, Sixlets, Reese's Pieces... you know, it's rare, but there's a special place in the Halloween Hall of Fame for the folks who get honest-to-goodness full-size candy bars for the trick-or-treaters!
If you aren't hung up on the sugar thing, but you figure your neighbors are gonna be handing out all kinds of candy, and you wanna stand out from the crowd, you can get Halloween-themed Smiley Cookies, like you can get at Eat-n-Park in Western Pennsylvania, from SmileyCookie.com. They come all individually-wrapped and you can get different-sized packages of them. Just a word of caution, though, the little Smiley Cookies are VERY easy to eat before the trick-or-treaters even get their costumes on. My first Halloween, I watched my Mommy chomp her way through TWO boxes, on accounta she ate the first box she ordered way ahead of time, WAY ahead of time. And then we didn't have all that many trick-or-treaters, so you guessed it. Mommy made some coffee and those little cookies didn't even stand a chance.
It is not without some bitterness and resentment that I've noticed that we haven't ordered any of those little Smiley Cookies now that I'm old enough to enjoy Smiley Cookies, and I LOVE Smiley Cookies, in fact!
But enough about my frustration. Back to YOU, Big People.
If you ARE concerned about the amount of sugar kids eat, or you don't wanna inadvertently set off a kid's food allergy, there are some alternatives. Oriental Trading Company has LOTS of little toys, puzzles, and stickers you could get and hand out. Halloween-themed pencils wouldn't be out of line, nor would Halloween-themed erasers. They also have cheap little Matchbox-like cars. If you're feeling really ambitious, Friends, you could assemble little treat bags from things found on Oriental Trading Company, but that's not really necessary. In a treat full of little Hershey bars (yum!) any little toy is gonna stand out from the crowd just a bit.
Finally, I'd like to address a Halloween treat that's been given out here at my very own house: Toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss. Yes, you can do this too, but it takes a special kind of person to be able to pull this Halloween treat off. As you know, my Daddy's a dentist, and he doesn't like to give kids more sugar. Mommy says he gets all "high and mighty" about it. Daddy says he's just doing his job. So for a number of years, even the year Smiley Cookies were offered at my house on Halloween, Trick-or-Treaters were also given a toothbrush, toothpaste, and thing of floss.
Yes, I'm serious. No, I'm not even kidding.
Mommy says she was mortified. Daddy says he was just doing his job. Evidently, Mommy thinks her job is to make sure Daddy has a job to do, because for every toothbrush Daddy handed out on Halloween night, Mommy handed out the Smiley Cookies, or before those... caramels.
Now that I've come along, you'd think I'd get a vote to tip the Halloween Treat Conundrum one way or the other, but do you know how Mommy and Daddy have thrown me in the mix? They shut off our porch light and take me around trick-or-treating, to a limited number of houses. I wouldn't put it past either of them to give my trick-or-treat houses a list of pre-approved treats, either.
So far, though, I haven't gotten any toothbrushes on Halloween night.
Did that give ya something to think about, Friends? Did that give ya a few ideas about what to hand out on Halloween this year? If so, then hop to and get your treats, so you're sure to have them at the ready when Halloween comes. If you're worried about eating them all beforehand, buy more treats than you think you'll need. You don't wanna end up giving a kid your stapler or laundry detergent!
HAHAHAHA! Oh, Friends. I love ya lots! I'll be back tomorrow with a fun Halloween-themed DANCE you can do!!! Muah!
No comments:
Post a Comment