While Hurricane Sandy threatens to wreck Halloween for children up and down the East Coast, here in Seattle, it’s merely supposed to rain. Please, don’t let that stop you from going out and trick-or-treating.
Here’s a grab-bag of thoughts on the topic. Please, take only one:
Alice asked us to make sure folks knew that there is a boycott on of Hershey’s chocolate, which has been using child slave labor (yes, five year-olds working without pay) in the Ivory Coast to harvest their cocoa. See Hershey Slave Labor Will End With Switch to Fair Trade Cocoa and other articles for details and source info. In the face of public outcry, they’ve agreed to switch to Fair Trade certified cocoa in one particular line of their chocolate, but for the rest of it, they’re saying it will be eight years before they quit themselves of slavery. Painful to imagine that happening to my child. Oh, and the chocolate tastes like wax.
So what should you get? We’ll get bludgeoned if we get all preachy about healthy food and anti-consumerism, but if you, of your own free will, are trying to think of things to give besides snack-sized candy bars, may we suggest something like super balls or mini-Play Dohs? With all the food allergies out there, it would be sweet if we could come up with some other ideas, as well. Anyone got any?
It’s been great to see a resurgence in door-to-door trick-or-treating (a retreat from the stranger-danger fear-driven mall-based trick-or-treating that gained currency for a while). Our house placement has deprived us of little visitors, who apparently have carefully constructed maps of the optimal and sub-optical locations to visit, but we’ve seen droves going up and down the streets these past few years.
One spot in particular to hit is 42nd and Eastern, where Flip and Marilyn put on a fantastic and interactive funhouse display every year (and parents and kids converge in a giant spooky jam). If there are other spots to hit, let us know!
(Photo snagged from Paul Dorpat’s fabulous Seattle Now & Then blog, and taken in front of Flip and Marilyn’s)
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We struck out on finding any local sources of trick-or-treat candy, but there are 19 of these left:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000LKYVZE/ref=ox_ya_os_product
There’s also this place, though no guarantees on delivery (but they are in Northern California, so there’s a reasonable shot at success):
https://www.naturalcandystore.com
I need to remember not to procrastinate so long next year. 😉
One year I bought full-sized candy bars. About an hour and half into the evening, I noticed I was running low, so I checked out my cupboards to see what else kids might want. I have a 12 pack of Orville microwave popcorn, so when kids came to the door, I asked them if they wanted popcorn or candy; EVERY SINGLE KID CHOSE THE POPCORN! I was out of the twelve bags and ended up with about six leftover candy bars.
Which brings us to the third rail of Halloween give-aways: is it OK to give out unwrapped / home-made goods? Has the (entirely unnecessary) terror of razor blades in apples subsided to the point whether kids can accept food from their neighbors without it being wrapped?
I’ve got to imagine that M&M Mars, Hershey’s and Nestle were not saddened to see people freak out over unwrapped treats on Halloween.
Great about the popcorn. I wonder how home made carameled apples would go over. We used to always get them in our baskets. (Yes, I’m much more worried about GMOs in processed food than I am about razor blades in apples.)
OMG, Hershey’s uses real cocoa.
Go home-made! There has never been a single documented case of poisoned or razor-bladed candy/apples.
The razor-blades-in-apples rumor was probably started by Big Candy.
The vote from the 10-year-old in our house is for Jolly Ranchers and “a bunch of other candies not made from chocolate,” such as Dum-Dums, Starburst, Skittles, Mike and Ike, Hot Tamales, etc.
While it is, of course, perfectly OK to GIVE out home-made treats, (and the whole scare is unfounded), lots of paranoid parents won’t let their kids TAKE homemade treats.
I would say have the homemade goodies for kids whose parents know you, and have a bowl of candy for kids who might end up sad because their parents told them to throw away the nice-looking, non-commercial cookies or whatever. You could put the home-made goodies in a bag with a little label like “Happy halloween from the Wallyhood family” as a further reassurance (in all the excitement, it’s hard to remember who gave out what).
But, razor blade or not, no kid wants an apple on Halloween. Unless it’s covered in caramel or sticky red stuff..
Two years ago, PCC sold bags of assorted well-wrapped halloween treats. We let the children pick out of a basket what they want and the children chose the gummy worms and granola bars etc until nothing was left except the fun size M&M’s, Kit Kats, Snickers etc. Last year our supply of Animal Planet tattoo boxes was exhausted early in the evening. The tattoo boxes are sold at Bartells. PCC is selling fruit juice gummy treats this year. My husband is happy to have the left over junk candy for himself.
starbuest and skittles are less harmful than hersheys?
In terms of boycotting Hershey’s for their use of child-slave produced chocolate, (the original discussion) yes, starbursts and skittles are better. Both are produced by Wrigley, neither has chocolate.
In terms of general nutritional value, yeah, they’re equivalent.
Seattle’s own PopCap Games has printable codes for a free PC game – Plants vs. Zombies. Despite the name, it’s very kid friendly.
http://www.stopzombiemouth.com/
Home made folks: We don’t take baked goods from people we don’t know, but it’s due to severe food allergies and our son’s braces, which knocks out popcorn, caramel, hard candy, etc.
We do take wrapped items that can be donated to the food bank. (The food banks create small gifts for child clients during the holidays.)
So if someone politely declines, it’s not necessarily paranoia. We just don’t want to bore you with 20 questions about what’s in there!
PCC Fremont has fair trade chocolate (endangered species brand) and fruit juice gummies this year.
We often do candy-free Halloween treats: tattoos are always popular, spider rings, Halloween sitckers, Halloween pencils, pumpkin shaped erasers, etc. I have a friend who gives out daffodil and crocus bulbs.
For several years i have offered kids a black coffee mug filled with a variety of colored pencils to choose from. the old fashioned regular size wooden colored pencils. The kids – even the teenagers – have big smiles on their faces as they choose them. and their parents appreciate this.
colored pencils are available at Bartell Drug Stores.
You can debate what kids like – I’d say it depends upon what they are allowed to have at home. We have plenty of apples at our house so my son wouldn’t choose one. We make our own popcorn – and it tastes way better – so microwave popcorn is not a treat for him. Tattoos and erasers are fun, pencils OK. Though I’m sure the first choice with 5th grade boys that I know would still be candy, including gummy worms.
A friend is giving out honey sticks this Halloween. Sourced them locally but I’m not sure where….
@19: But not to children under the age of 1 is the general thinking regarding ingesting honey . . .
Last year we gave out edamame, but we felt bad the next day because the kids refused to compost the pods properly, so this year we’re giving out a gluten-free, peanut-free, lactose-free, non-GMO soy paste that’s taste-free so as not to offend anyone’s palate and semi-gelatinous so as not to discriminate against the toothless.
Last year some time before Halloween, I emailed Theo Chocolate to ask if they had any [small] product that could be given out for Halloween candy. And I may have asked if they had any Halloween-related program for giving out ethically-sourced chocolate. Never received a response. It sure would be nice / handy / easy if Theo offered us a reasonably-priced alternative to commercial Halloween candy. And we could walk or bike to their store to purchase it.
Chris–Kudos! You rule in Wallingford! Assuming your soy is organic and local…
@19–very few 1-year-olds trick or treat and eat everything they get. It’s called taking candy from a baby.
Hey it’s Halloween. Halloween = candy. When we moved here 27 years ago there were hardly any kids. We gave out regular sized candy bars and had less than 10 kids. Now we get over 100! Still doing the regular candy bars – settled years ago on what the kids liked best – Hershey bars and Skittles 🙂
P.S. Oh and sorry that I didn’t know about Hershey 🙁 Will have to come up with another chocolate bar. We do love Theo chocolate but too spendy to give out to the trick or treaters .. keep that for ourselves. BTW you should check out their factory tour. Only 6 bucks, very educational, and you get samples.
Thanks for this post, we didn’t know about Hersey, but we had not purchased candy yet so we were able to steer clear! We did still buy drug store bags of candy. I was raised in a candy, sugar cereal, and soda pop free home, but my folks always allowed Halloween candy, so I’ll be giving your kids sugar and food coloring laden treats this year 🙂
There’s also a long-standing Nestle boycott that’s worth knowing about. http://www.phdinparenting.com/2010/08/02/nestle/#.UJBDaYYvmW0
dandelion leaves.. washed in ourified boiled water..
At Bartells, we just recently brought in UnReal candy bars. To be honest I’m not sure how they sourced the cocoa but they are free of preservatives, artificial colors and hydrogenated oils. You can visit their website for more info. They’re on sale this week for 69cents and we still have a few 25cent off coupons. We don’t have them in fun size this year but we’re working on getting that in for next Halloween.
http://getunreal.com/unreal-candy/unreal-54/
For organic fair trade chocolate please check out THEO if you haven’t tried them yet. They’re a little pricey for trick or treaters but awesome for personal consumption.
If anyone has other suggestions for candy alternatives please pass the information on and I will see what I can do about bringing it in.
Thanks,
Heidi