By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor
The familiar old pattern just might be shaken up a bit this
Halloween for our family.
With my wife being an elementary school teacher and not having
much time to shop for Halloween candy, that task usually falls to me and it’s a
responsibility I do not take lightly.
For me, I can recall how exciting it was to decide on a
costume to wear to go out trick or treating every Halloween in the 1960s and
then dumping out my collection on the kitchen table when it was over to see
what goodies I had amassed.
This was before the days when “snack size,” or “bite size” or
“mini” bags of candy was sold and I could end up with a haul of full-sized
candy bars that would last well into the month of November.
Bearing that in mind, at some point in the 1990s, when I had
worked my way up to a consistent income, I made the decision to purchase
full-sized candy bars for trick or treaters who visit our home every Halloween.
My wife thinks I’m crazy for insisting on doing this and chides me for the
money that I spend doing this.
But I want the kids who stop by our home to know what it was
like back in the 1960s before Halloween candy was merely an afterthought and
neighbors wanted to buy the cheapest candy possible available and be done with
it.
Every year I buy around 100 full-sized candy bars and typically
end up with about 65 bars left over. I probably buy more Halloween candy than I
should, but I believe it’s always better to have more on hand rather than to
run out early and have to disappoint the trick or treaters.
With that much candy left over, it’s inevitable that I end up
eating what remains, so in my book, it’s a win-win situation. Not so for my
wife, who will always try to give the leftover candy away to neighborhood
children instead of letting me overindulge my Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup habit
each year.
Overbuying Halloween candy has become a tradition in our
household every year as is hiding the stash of full-size Hershey chocolate
bars, full-size Skittles, full-size Kit Kats and full-size Butterfingers until
Oct. 31 rolls around. Typically, a handful of the full-size bars always seem to
be missing ahead of when we fill the candy basket for our Halloween visitors.
And speaking of visitors, a trend I’ve noticed lately in my
neighborhood is parents pushing young infants and children under the age of 2
coming up to our door trick or treating. The full-size candy bars are probably
not being consumed by these very small kids and my suspicion is Mom and Dad are
eating the candy when they get home. But in my book, it’s all good. It’s
Halloween and who can be unhappy, other than dentists, about a holiday in which
candy is freely distributed across America?
There’s nothing better than to open the door and see excited
little ones who have spent hours preparing their costumes while their moms and
dads truly look on in awe when they find they can reach into a large bowl and
come away with a full-sized candy bar. It makes me happy to hear them proclaim
to their parents that they want to come back to our house again next year
because we give away the best Halloween candy.
And that brings me to this year with the uncertainty about
health and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Do I buy my usual complement of full-size bars again and if
so, how many children will be trick or treating this year?
My thoughts are that I’m probably going to scale back my
purchase of full-sized candy by at least half of what I normally purchase.
In years past, we’ve had about 35 kids stop by our home and I just don’t see that many visitors this year. It saddens me that a virus has disrupted our lives to the point that even timeless traditions such as Halloween are affected. Hoping we can soon return to normalcy and the doorbell rings many times on the evening of Oct. 31, 2021. <
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