Halloween
 

:shrug3:shrug3:shrug3
Um, we have food sensitivities and can't eat run of the mill candy just a few expensive alternative. We recently moved into town (I've never lived in town before) and I don't know what to do if trick or treaters show up at our door.
Basically no one can give away home made treats any more.
I don't want to buy candies we can't eat.
What should I do?
PS I don't like Halloween anyway. Yuck. In our old community we took our kids to a church fun night but I havent heard of one around here.
PS2 if this is in the wrong place please feel free to move it. I put it here because it is mostly about food sensitivities.
Image already added

Re: Halloween
 

Lots of years we kept our outdoor lights off if we weren't giving away candy. Or we went somewhere during ToT. A movie or something.

Re: Halloween
 

We go swimming on Halloween. We get the pool basically to ourselves.

Re: Halloween
 

We hand out homemade popcorn and hot chocolate and haven't had any issues with anyone with them being homemade. This will be our fourth year doing this as an outreach to our neighborhood. We set up our fire pit in the front yard with a seating arrangement, lighting, etc. and hand out these treats along with candy. If you want to participate in some way, is there something like that you can do that you aren't allergic to?

Re: Halloween
 

There is a house next street down that gets out their grill and does hotdogs and they also have Charlie Brown great pumpkin movie playing on a big blowup screen and they bring up their fire pit and make smores. They have bottles of water and juice boxes and it's a HUGE hit!


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Re: Halloween
 

Ask in the community if anyone is doing the teal pumpkin project.

Re: Halloween
 

We aren't in a neighborhood but this is what we'd do if we were. We have friends who've done this. It's lovely. Whole families come and hang out on the lawn.

Re: Halloween
 

Thanks everyone for the ideas.
We do not have a fire pit but a warm up station sounds like a lovely idea if we did have one.
A lot of the foods suggested we can't do with our food sensitivities (at least not without a lot of extra cost :()
I looked up the teal pumpkin because I've never heard of it. That sounds interesting but do kids like it? I just get the feeling everyone wants sugar, sugar, and more sugar and nothing else will do.
I like the swimming pool idea as well, no one can wear gross costumes in the pool.:lol

Re: Halloween
 

We buy candy to give out that we don't personally eat due to allergies. Would that be an option? You can get safe candy for your kids and hand out regular candy to the neighbors.

Re: Halloween
 

I would ask your neighbors how many ToTers to expect.


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Re: Halloween
 

This is what we do. Our neighborhood gets very few trick or treaters, so one bag of candy is more than enough. We let our kids go out trick or treating, so we buy candy they can eat and trade it out when they get home. We try to give it away to people that can eat it, but I admit that a lot of candy goes in the trash. The candy companies make a killing on Halloween!

Re: Halloween
 

If you keep your lights off out front no one should ring. If they do just ignore it. My kids don't eat more than a few of the pieces of candy they get, we buy it from them, but they like the houses that give out toys, pencils, etc. My youngest has a rubber ducky collection that was established mainly from one of the houses in our neighborhood. He looks forward to it every year.

Re: Halloween
 

My daughter is egg and dairy free which eliminates basically all the chocolate candies.

I’m going to hand out things like skittles and starburst. She will go trick or treating and I’m going to get her to cash in her candy for a small toy.

You can’t handout Candy stickers in glow sticks are also a great hit here

Re: Halloween
 

That's why I thought swimming would be good. I was trying to think of somewhere that Halloween wouldn't be much different and I was right (as opposed to something like bowling, mini golf, or roller skating where people could still dress up). The front desk people do often dress up (but they're at work so it can't be too gory or anything) and there are sometimes little Halloween decals on various windows, but by and large the swimming experience is pretty much normal, just much less crowded (which I appreciate for sure!) Some pools close, though, so be sure to call and ask about Halloween specifically. Sometimes the pool closes at 7 so we go and swim, then go out for dinner and by the time we are back everything is over (we don't stay home because people ring our doorbell all evening long anyway even if the lights are off).

Re: Halloween
 

If you want to participate buy a bag of candy, hand out and then donate the rest (or give extremely generous portions when you realize tot'ing is almost done and you still have some left :shifty ).

If you don't want to participate just turn off the lights and stay inside (or go somewhere). At least in my community we have found that more and more people are not participating in Halloween, either because they do so through bigger venues (church sponsored trunk or treat, etc) or because they simply don't want to. When I was a kid almost every door had their lights on, now it's definitely more lights off than on.