Halloween Leftovers

Every major holiday has leftovers. But only Halloween has awesome chocolate-y sugary leftovers. This year was the first year my daughter had some of those corn syrupy leftovers. Coincidentally, it was also the first year that she grasped the trick-or-treating concept. As in, people give you candy and you can eat it. (After daddy gets his points on the package).

This year my Elmo-costumed toddler raided a mere six houses, it was enough to partially fill her pumpkin-themed loot bag. Surprisingly there is still candy in that bag.

She didn’t gorge and eat all her candy in one sitting like she will in a few years. We didn’t let her, and she well, couldn’t. Her chubby toddler fingers combined with her toddler dexterity meant she was unable to open her candy.

So instead of opening and eating it, she carries it around. Every day looks like Halloween as she carts around her little trick-or-treat pumpkin.

Normally, as parents we could slowly steal a treat or two from her basket, except we can’t because she keeps a tight watch on the treat-filled pumpkin. She guards the candy like a dragon guarding treasure. And she itemizes its contents. Literally.

She empties the basket, counts the goods and places the candy back in the basket.

When she’s cataloguing her candy, she looks at each piece inquisitively and asks, “what’s that?”

To which we answer the appropriate candy name. She repeats the candy brand name in typical garbled toddler fashion. So Crispy Crunch becomes “Kisbee Unch” and so on.

She can never keep track of the proper nomenclature, so she identifies her candies by packaging colour. Turns out most candy packaging is yellow or red.

Occasionally during her daily itemizing, she will hand out her candy. She gives the candy to her favourite toys and occasionally to my wife and me. She is very specific about who gets what candy. No tradesies but you can eat the candy.

It’s delicious. That free candy from strangers that our daughter earned by dressing up as her favourite Muppet.

When she shares her candy with us, we share the candy back with our daughter. We’re not monsters. She’s allowed to have the occasional treat. Halloween candy is perfectly toddler-sized after all.