The Halloween Grinch
As a kid, Halloween was one of the most fun nights of the year. I would sprint through the neighborhoods as if I was being chased by a stranger trying to get to as many houses as possible until the last porch light was turned off. In a way, I was being chased except my pursuer wasn’t a stranger. Oh no, my pursuer was very familiar. It was my never ending craving for sugar. When I got home, I remember dumping my loot out on the floor and after checking for staples, razor blades and other creepies, I would chew, crunch, and suck until my stomach hurt. This would continue for about 2 days until the only things that remained were a few of those nasty peanut butter taffies wrapped in the black or orange paper.
(source)
Yet, not even the waxy nastiness could stop me. Nor would my aching jaw.
Things have changed. I don’t eat candy. Not because I’m self-righteous but because almost 3 years ago I accepted my limitation. I grew tired of being controlled by a 3 pound bag of M&Ms or a pound of Twizzlers. I tried moderation. I tried portion control. I tried “one piece of dark chocolate a day”. I tried scaring myself out of eating it by reading of its “evils”. I tried talking to myself lovingly as if I was a small child, gently reminding myself that one is enough. Nothing worked except, when I was ready, refusing it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a sugar addict. I will own that. There is such thing as too much maple syrup and too much honey. However, because I don’t eat candy or other sweets made with processed sugar my intake is greatly reduced. GREATLY REDUCED. Gone are the days of candy and cookie binges. After all, maple syrup is expensive.
Now when I trick-or-treat with my kids my past and present selves are at conflict. On one hand, I want to cheer them on as they race house to house with them squealing as the plastic pumpkins are filled to the brim. On the other hand, I know we are playing with fire and possibly genetics. I’m quite certain, one not both, of my kids is a blossoming sugar addict.
Right now about 6 pounds of candy is on a shelf above my desk sitting on top of a stack of old Oxygen Magazines. I’m allowing them to have one piece per day after a meal. They think I’m the Halloween Grinch and I think I’m trying to be a good mother. My kids may think I’m about as awesome as a peanut taffy when it comes to candy but I make up for it by joining them in the costume fun. Brent and I as Princess Leia and Han. If you want to see more photos of our Halloween check out our family blog. 
What do you do with the Halloween Candy? If you have kids, how do you deal with all of it? (Any advice is welcomed.) Did you dress up?
Hugs and High Fives,
Jenn
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This is my (almost) sane quest for insane health. Let's 
YOur family is SO CUTE! I love the Leia costume – you work it better than Carrie Fisher! As for halloween candy… yikes. That is WW III at our house right now. I let the kids pick 20 pieces out of their bags to do whatever they want with (two of them ate all 20 pieces that night) and then I took the rest away. So now there’s a ginormous bag full of candy in the garage that I haven’t decided if I’m going to get rid of or keep to bribe, er, reward my kids with occasionally. The good news? With Intuitive Eating I haven’t felt any desire to pig out on their treats! Seriously! It’s so crazy I almost don’t believe it myself…
Thanks Charlotte. I thought about her famous Return to the Jedi costume but not sure wearing a chains and a bikini would have worked for the family theme. 😉 Good for you for not “pigging” out on their treats.
Grinch? Nah. I tell the kids the candy goes bad after 2 days and toss it all. Bwahahahahaha!
Genius!!!!
My mom used to do that too, and I hated it. We got to eat one from each “candy type” bowl. (We also had to combine all our candy together and then separate it by tye…wonder where I got my anal-ness from?)
Tee hee!!!
you described my childhood halloween experience to a T!!! unfortunately though I haven’t been able to tame that sugar monster (yet)
I give my kids 1-2 pieces per day for the first week and then throw it all away. Thankfully they never seem to notice.
(This is of course after i have eaten all the good chocolate!) 😉
awesome family photo! Can’t wait to meet you in person!
Can’t wait to meet you!!!!
At least you know yourself and your limitations and you are ok with it. That’s huge I think. Just being ok.
Hmmm…I like this Lisa. I’m going to write more about this. Thank you.
Agreed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I dress up with my little girl and she is allowed to have 3 pieces the night of Halloween and then 1 piece for the following 2 days – then we trash it! Yes, I did say “we”. Something that we practice in day to day existence is “If it doesnt feel right then lets not do it” … that blends into every area of our lives. Sure as the sun rises after her 3 pieces of candy she felt like blah … so “we” decided it just did not feel right. I will tell you that we constantly have 80% cacoa organic dark choc in the house and if she wants a piece of that at any time she is welcome, me too! We take it back to “does this feel right? Why? Lets look at the ingredients….”
My proudest moment was when another little girl offered her a Snickers and my daughter goes “ew, i dont even know what that is”
You’re a good mama!!!
Our Bishop has a candy jar in his office. This year, all three of my kids donated 10% of their loot to the Bishop to thank him for sharing his candy.
I used to monitor their candy (one after lunch and dinner, etc.). This year, I’m trying something different. I don’t know if it’s the answer, but I’m encouraging them to listen to their body. They know the difference between real food and play food. The results so far: my youngest two (5 and 9 y.o.) have paced themselves very nicely. My 10 y.o. made himself sick. I once saw him sneaking candy and told him he doesn’t have to sneak it. He was surprised. Then he went for it. Maybe he didn’t believe me and ate it before I came to my senses. Or maybe he thought I’d make him share his bigger loot with his little bro and sis who didn’t trick-or-treat as long and had a smaller stash. Or he just mindlessly ate it while watching a movie. I don’t know, but he got sick! We used it as a learning opportunity. It’s hard watching my kids make poor decisions.
As far as I go, I passed out Halloween pencils and rubber mice instead of candy this year. I’m doing better about my own binge eating, but I just didn’t want it around. My kids offered my favorites to me, and I ate those without guilt, but I wasn’t ready for a bowl full of the stuff tempting me.
This is really interesting, Gina. My 10 year would do the exact same thing. I would have been so happy to have gotten a rubber mouse as a child. I had a thing for rodents as a child. Seriously!
We monitor their candy too but nobody monitors Mama. Yikes. I love that you guys dress up as a family. Princess Leia is every dude’s fantasy!OK going to check your family blog now!
Thanks for the comment on my family blog the other day!
Such a great family photo and fun idea! So well executed too!
Well, I’m not a mom (well, I am a very strict mom of cats, but that’s different) but i remember as a child, feeling like this: when someone told me I could only have X pieces, I wanted more. I rebelled. Then I’d sneak candy from our neighbors house when no one was looking. I was chubby. The neighbor kids were not. And THEY had this on their countertops (to eat ad lib): about 4 different jars of cookies and about 3 jars of candies. And to them it was like ‘meh, whateva, I can have that any day of the week’. When I’d visit them I’d be completely obsessed with it as it wasn’t allowed in my house (except Halloween aka “the fastest lesson to life-long sugar binge eating”)
So, I’m sure I wasn’t helpful. And you will do what’s best for you and the kiddos. <3
Great points Deb! You bring up a point I think about often. As it was I WAS the friend who had tons of cookies and candies all the time. I wasn’t overweight (fast metabolism I guess) but I ate that stuff ALL THE TIME. When I would go to a friend’s house who had different goodies, then I would go crazy there as well.
Ha! My sister and her family did the same costume thing.. I have never seen star wars but she was leia and the rest of them were.. uh.. more star wars characters. her newborn was yoda. you guys are so cute!
I don’t think you are a grinch, i think you are sensible. My other sister does the trade in with her kids.. i think it’s like a nickle for every piece or something.
To janetha — that’s a good idea, I like the trade-in idea.
I actually used your sisters idea and ended up buying a good amount of the candy (a nickel a piece) off of them! THANKS!!
My kids candy is sitting in our closet… you know what that means.
Hoarder.
I always liked the peanut butter taffies. 😉
So did Brent (my husband). 😀
I absolutely love your family Halloween picture. So adorable. And kudos to you for sticking to your guns even on Halloween. My sugar addiction is at its worst this time of year and I KNOW it stems from when I was a kid. I need to work on that actually…
Thanks Jenny. Yeah, this time of year there is so much junk around!
Hey there, didn’t know if I would post here or not. but I enjoy your site so “here goes”
My thoughts are that as human beings we struggle with moderation in regards to most things. So without going off in more detail about that, our kids live in this world too and face the same issues we do. I think it is our job to talk to them about sugar and how it is an extremely enjoyable thing. But! Although all things are permissible, not all things are profitable. Yes we can enjoy candy in moderation. But to sit, even once a year and gorge, is probably not going to benefit our body. And I don’t give any away that we have gotten as I don’t want to encourage others to live that way either. I think it is healthy to learn to say no to ourselves sometimes, something we don’t do enough of. And we all want our kids to have a healthy respect for there own bodies and to encourage them to care for others as well and not hand out the leftovers. You could say throwing it out seems “wasteful”, but it is either in your garbage can after it has been enjoyed in a healthy way, or on your kids body in an unhealthy way, kids become adults who either know moderation of their sweet tooth or trying to blame their bad choices on someone or something else, again “human nature”. It’s not just removal of candy, it’s helping them understand the why, and that it is done out of love and respect. We have one body in this life, food is fuel and enjoyment, but like drugs or alcohol, with our nature we tend to abuse a seemingly good thing. Enjoy a little, then throw out:)
Thank you for your thoughtful response, Donna. I agree explaining the “why” is so important.
Love the costumes!
I fear the same things about my kids. It terrifies me to know that they could possibly be one day cursed with my terrible eating habits and both mine and my husband’s vulnerability to be very overweight.
I still fight to give up cookies, scones and candy all together, and simply don’t keep it in the house, but when I am at work it is a big challenge to not lose control.
Thanks Monica. Simply keeping stuff out of the house helps me as well!
OMG – I was princess leia too. LOL. Love the Hans idea – my hubby was a storm trooper. The kids were buzz and woody.
As for candy – it is sitting on top of the fridge. I am letting the kids take 1 piece after dinner and 1 piece after lunch. Choose wisely, munchkins! LOL! I laugh as they go for a single tootsie roll over a snickers bar.
As for me, I agree, it’s better not to even munch on one piece of candy, because then i want more! If i don’t have any, I don’t want any. Weird, right?
And yah, I am a honey addict too. LOL. I buy it on occasion because I don’t know when to stop. LOL. So yummmmmmy.
Totally weird! In a good way!!!
you had me. lost me
at that PHOTO!!
thats a greeting card not a family shot
we.would.all.be.bickering….
love it.