Trick or Treat

We took the kids out last night to gather sweets and goodies from the neighbors. What fun!

Leah went to the store earlier in the day and found our capitalist economy to be hard at work. Bags of candy that had been $2-3 a week before were now $5-6. She opted to not purchase any candy and reasoned that since we’d all be out, it wouldn’t matter. I had a better plan.

You might not think this was a good idea, and you should know that Leah didn’t agree at first, but I convinced her to let us give it a try. I figured that most of the candy the kids got from our neighbors wasn’t going to be eaten by my children anyway. So I reasoned that if we went out early and filled our bags, then when we got home we could let our kids pass out candy to the kids that got a later start. Leah thought that seemed kind of cheap to make the kids give away the candy that they had just gone out to collect, but she was missing two critical pieces of information:

1. She wasn’t there last year when it was too cold to go out, and the girls had the best time just answering the door and passing out candy.

2. She wasn’t thinking about the licorice, taffy, cheese crackers (seriously, we got cheese crackers at one house), mounds, and almond joys that our kids didn’t want in the first place.

So, we headed out a little after six with some friends of ours and some neighbors to collect as much candy as possible. There were probably ten kids in our group and after an hour or so they were all tired of walking. Thankfully, Leah had thought ahead and brought the wagon for the littlest ones. Reagan had the brilliant idea at that point of all the kids going back to our living room to have candy swap; she didn’t know my plan yet, but it was starting to come together.

After we arrived back at the house, the kids all gathered in a big circle in the living room and started going through their haul. Reagan was like a little auctioneer moving from person to person helping to facilitate trades. One snickers for two lollipops; two tootsie rolls for a bag of M&Ms. It was hilarious.

Just then, the doorbell rang, and all of the kids looked at me. I told them to answer the door, and they asked where the candy to hand out was. I just told them to figure something out. They all looked at each other and piled their rejects into a top hat (part of the Willy Wonka costume that one of them wore). They answered the door and realized the genius of my idea.

From that point on, they were ambitious about inviting kids to the door so that they could pass out candy. Of course, I told them to make sure to mix in a few good things every once in a while so we didn’t the reputation of being the “crappy candy” house, and when it was all over, we had less than half of our original haul left. Just enough to keep the kids happy for a while, and more than enough to make Mom and Dad happy.

Leah finally had to admit that it was a brilliant idea and that it had worked flawlessly. Next year, I think I’ll run for political office. If I can work kids so easily, adults wouldn’t even be a challenge!