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Glow sticks would be a big hit in my neighborhood.
One year, someone gave out small stuffed animals - my daughter was THRILLED.
I hand out fruit snacks and goldfish. I don't know any kids that won't eat those. The best part is that any left over get dumped in the snack box for the kids to eat on weekends.
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Originally Posted by SXMGirl
I give out juice boxes. Kids love them. I even have kids who make my house the half-way point so that they can get something to drink.
I like the goldfish idea (I can crush up leftovers for chicken and seafood coating) and the juice box idea (leftovers can go in my breakfast smoothie).
Truly the main reason I am doing this is to avoid having chocolate left in my house (or for that matter, in the days leading up to Halloween) to tempt me. I have a horrendous sweet tooth that I am always trying to control, but I have no willpower when I know something is in my house. I know, it's my issue, and I don't want the neighborhood kids to be "penalized" for my weakness, but my way to deal with my issue is to keep sweets out of the house. I'm retired, so I can't just take the extras to work.
Maybe the kids in my neighborhood are less spoiled than that. We get over 200 kids every year. I can't afford to give out high priced items, so yes, they get cheap plastic spider rings and things like that. The response I get is always delight. Most of the time, the kids reach in the bag to pull it out and put it on before walking down the sidewalk. I get lots of "cool, mom, look a ring!" Never been egged or TP'd. But we're a blue collar working class neighborhood where most of the kids have been taught to be thankful for what they get.
Last I counted - we had 279 kids roll through our house before we ran out of candy and went inside. We went through about $50 in candy for all 279 kids. We bought big bags at Costco and gave out two pieces per child - regardless of whether big or small. In return, my two children ended up coming home with just about as much candy from their treat or treating - so it was a wash.
And I don't think wanting candy on a day famous for getting candy makes kids unthankful if they react with displeasure over a non-candy item in their bag.
Check with your bank if they have half dollars on hand. When I worked in the branch we used to always keep them in stock. Question is though--do you get a very large turnout of kids? Handing out half dollars might cost you a lot of money lol
Glow sticks are a nice idea. I'm going to assume that kids don't eat anything until their parents inspect the items (that's what I do). If you give out glow sticks maybe tell them, "Hey, I have cool glow sticks you can use to walk around with" that way there's less of a chance of them just biting into it
We've given out the small bags of pretzels and my daughter has received them as well. She's not much of a candy eater (only a few things she actually likes) so she always likes getting pretzels or small bags of chips.
I also go to the party store and pick up packages of Halloween party favors like spider rings, bookmarkers or Halloween themed erasers or those little maze toys. They're pretty inexpensive and you get at least a dozen in a package, sometimes more depending on what the item is. We've spent so much money on candy and have had left-overs that we preferred having little items that we can use the following year if there's any left.
I usually pick stuff like this...
bookmarkers
rings--these are really inexpensive. I think they're about $2
When I was a kid, it was fun to get the wax fangs. Do they still make those?
I don't know what you would do with leftovers, though. Maybe donate them to the food bank? Food bank hands out some non-food kid stuff.
We gave those out one year while we still lived in the city, maybe five years ago. I love them too but they are expensive as a Halloween candy as we would get two hundred plus.
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