I came across this picture recently and it made me laugh. Here I am in 5th grade sorting my Halloween candy as soon as I got home. Must put all Milky Ways together and Hershey Kisses together! A jumble of candy made no sense.  I could better trade with my brothers when I knew exactly how much of each candy I had!

While I still love Halloween and chocolate, I have learned to not eat it so much- and to not allow Reese’s Peanut Butter cups in the house because I will eat them all. So what do you do when you have too much Halloween candy left? Here are 10 things to consider:

1. Don’t do as much trick-or-treating or only allow your child to take one candy from each house- no matter what is offered. They still get to trick-or-treat, but won’t end up with nearly as much candy as they would getting a handful at each house.

2. If your kids are back from trick-or-treating, have them go through their bags and right away give you the candy they don’t like. Add that to your bowl of candy for trick-or-treaters who are still coming to your door- and give away much bigger “servings”.

3. Put half of it away until Thanksgiving and put it out at the family gathering or save it to add to Christmas stockings.

4. Take it to work or the teacher’s lounge at your child’s school.

5. Put them in the freezer to use year round in milkshakes and ice-cream toppings or melt them down to use them for baking.

6. See if your local shelter or food pantry will take candy.

7. Put it on Freecycle. Someone else will definitely want the candy.

8. Donate it to Operation Shoebox or Operation Gratitude who send it our troops deployed overseas.

9. “Sell” it to Halloween Candy Buy Back which works with local dentists to gather extra candy for our troops.

10. Instead of handing out candy, try pretzels or fruit snacks. They sell them in Halloween packaging. Or try stickers or small toys. A treat doesn’t have to be candy.

Happy Halloween!