The Ying and Yang of Halloween

The Ying and Yang of Halloween

Trick or Treat time. Once again many of us are plagued by the ying yang of what to do. Give out candy, which perpetuates poor health and health habits, or give out something healthy that kids will likely throw away. I have two suggestions. One is to give out non-food items. There are many inexpensive and small items kids like to have. Try temporary tattoos, shiny rocks, shells, pencils, erasers, small rubber balls, glow sticks, stickers or even coins. If you are feeling creative, make something yourself. Give each child one or two pieces of origami paper and directions to make an animal. Buy a book of Mad Libs or crossword puzzles. Give each child a page of the book, rolled up with a ribbon. You can even make your own mad lib or crossword puzzle. Find the directions to a unique paper airplane and attach them to the appropriate size piece of paper.

If you want to give out candy type items I recommend sticking with real food. By real food I mean nuts, seeds, dried fruit (with no sugar added), honey based treat (as opposed to high fructose corn syrup) and popcorn. Buy small individual serving size bags of sunflower seeds, nuts or pumpkin seeds; or bag them yourself. There are several different brands of sesame honey candy available. Even peanut brittle is real food; nuts and sugar. Dried fruit such as raisins, mango and berries are widely available, but also may require you bagging them in small sizes.

Popcorn is great for kids. If you like you can pop it yourself and give it out warm in small bags. The children can eat it as they walk from house to house. You can also give out small bags of unpopped popcorn kernels with directions on how to pop it on the stove top with oil. Many children think popcorn needs to be micro waved and are amazed that it can be popped in a pot. Please do not give out microwave popcorn, the bag liners have carcinogenic ingredients that escape into the popcorn when heated. Also, flavored popcorn usually has high levels of food coloring, artificial flavors and salt. Another corn based real food is dried corn kernels. These also come in small snack bags.

Although honey is just pure sugar, it is a natural real food. Purchase honey in small plastic tubes. Also, the amount of honey in the tubes is very small, but kids love to suck it out. You might consider serving real apple cider on Halloween night, let the kids and adults drink it at your home. Warm the cider if it is cold on Halloween night. Hot chocolate, made with real milk, may also be appreciated in some areas of the country. So enjoy, and have a great, guilt free evening.

Less is More

I was at my son's school picking him up early the day of his Halloween party. Of course there was the general chaos with children moving around in costume and from activity to activity. But what got my attention was the food table and an activity table.

The food table was covered with, of course, food. I remember seeing both fun foods and healthy foods: carrot sticks, grapes, apples, edamame, goldfish shaped crackers, puffed cheese balls, and pretzels. But there was even more food that I don't remember. One activity table where children were to decorate a ball of clay with beads and noodle and other do-dads was covered with a very large choice of decorations.

I don't believe that having more of everything than one could possibly use is necessary or particularly helpful. Many of us with access to resources over provide for our children. This does not help create a child that values what is, or a child that appreciates what is given. I don't believe that a child needs a 6 foot long buffet of food to make a party successful. I remember being quite happy with my one ghost shaped cookie and small (maybe 1/4 cup) container of ice cream at my school halloween party. The idea of a treat was what the excitement was about, not the actual treat. Especially as my peers and myself all came from families that had the resources to provide food and celebrate holidays on a regular basis. A craft project with too many choices does not necessarily encourage creativity or enhance results. It results in a mess. It is amazing the results 10 different children create when each are given a lump of clay and 3 or 4 types of do-dads to adorn it with.

I am embarrassed by the opulence of it all. These are children that are almost all from upper middle class homes or above. They have birthday and holiday parties regularly in their homes and are invited to parties regularly outside of school. These children have been exposed to restaurants, shopping malls and grocery stores where everything is available and displayed in very attractive settings. These are children that want for nothing, they have clothes, heat, food, vacations away from home, toys, books, large screen TVs, computers, parents with cars, and opportunities for all sorts of extra curricular lessons after school.

So how do we teach our children to appreciate what they have and learn to realize that not everyone has access to what they have, see and expect on a daily basis? How do we change their expectations? How do we teach them to slow down and really appreciate what they have? We could start by toning down parties and celebrations at school and even at home. We could put our resources into schools that may not have the parents with the ability to provide even the cookie for the Halloween party. We could package up our party paraphernalia and instead of using it for our children, pass it on to those who don't have enough for these extras. Instead of providing too much for our children, we could help others by taking nutritious foods to food banks, not just at holidays, but year round. There are many ways to "spread the wealth", lets' teach our children how it's done.