Have you heard of the Switch Witch? It’s a brilliant mom-plot to get rid of Halloween candy, and I was reminded of this mythical creature from a story in the Wall Street Journal, “Parents Trick Children Out of Halloween Candy.” I tested the story out in the car-ride home on Thursday to see if Thomas had any interest in giving up his Halloween candy for a toy, and he latched right on to the exchange – by the end of the ride, I had to get all of the details straight so my husband knew the drill: the Switch Witch is a friend of mine, she doesn’t come to all children’s houses, but she’ll come to ours if I invite her, she rides a purple broom and she switches the candy for a toy in the middle of the night. Immediately, he started listing off the toys he thought she may bring, and to my surprise, he listed the toy that I actually had already purchased for Christmas and was hidden in our garage, the Paw Patrol Lookout. (Go ahead and marvel at my very early start on Christmas shopping. I’m way ahead of the usual Christmas Eve panicked shopping spree this year.)
He didn’t get all of the details exactly right, because he informed Mama Lee that the Switch Witch would give him a toy for one piece of candy… which, of course, the Witch wants much more than one piece of candy to make it worth her time, effort & money to bring a toy.
So, after a fun Friday trick-or-treating, he chose 5 pieces of candy to keep, and the rest were in the bucket, left on the table, for the big midnight switch-a-roo.
I’d say that was worth the candy.
He woke up and was so excited about his new Paw Patrol toy. He also wanted to eat all of his candy for breakfast, so I was happy that we did have the “switch witch” because otherwise, it would have been a stream of “no, not right now” throughout the day for every request to eat candy.
Eliminate the temptation. (er, for him… I, unfortunately, know where it’s hidden!)
Also, on the subject of too much sugar, have you seen the documentary Fed Up? Narrated by Katie Couric, the documentary focuses on the obesity problem in America with some very eye-opening facts about sugar and the processed foods that we eat – and how the government enables the food industry to continue contributing to the obesity problem. Sugar is in everything. Juice is terrible. Processed foods are addictive and make you fat. It’s all the same things we know to be true, and we keep taking steps to eat the way we know we should but it is so, so difficult for us. We have been trying to make dinners at home – but eliminating the convenience of processed foods is very difficult, especially when we’re always so limited on time during the week. We’ve been shopping at the new Lowe’s which has a fantastic pre-cut veggie and fruit section, which makes it so much easier for us to make dinners during the week. Prepping takes a lot of time, and unless we’re organized, it just doesn’t happen. (The crockpot is my bestie.)
Would love some tips & recipes on how you feed your family easy, healthy dinners during the week!
we started this in houston. Ours was called the halloween fairy and is a cousin of the tooth fairy. Same idea…she took the candy in exchange for a toy.
Ha, Nikki! a cousin of the tooth fairy, brilliant. I’m going to need a tooth fairy if I keep eating all of the switch witch’s candy…
This is a great idea! we honestly had the candy around for a week and then said–pick out 2 pieces the rest is going in the trash. luckily they understand from school that it’s bad for you, etc. honestly, i’m probably the worst b/c I just pick up a piece here and there. we threw it out and haven’t had a request for one since. it’s quite alarming in regards to the amount of sugar. and we try to do what we can, but even yogurt is jam packed with sugar. we do pretty well on not eating fast food, but high fructose corn syrup sneaks its way into everything, it seems like…we definitely menu plan on the weekends and grocery shop for the entire week that way we know what we will be having in advance for the week. In which case, we can prepare and not pull a–do you just want to order a pizza? don’t get me wrong, we have those once in a while 🙂 the processed foods are definitely my weakest point. my kids would eat fruit all day every day if I let them.