Halloween Candy - Chandler,AZ

I leave the bowl out and hope that the kids will be fair. For me, it's better to offer candy to the 90% who are fair and realize there are a few bad apples than to deny the joy to everyone.

(I'm a single parent with only small kids... so no one else to leave home when it's time to trick or treat)

If you only have a few kids come by I would just leave out the bowl with a sign. Even if someone takes it all at least you tried!

I was a single parent. I couldn't be in two places at once. I took my daughter trick or treating until she outgrew it, then I stayed home to pass out candy.

O. goes with, O. passes out candy.
We switch halfway through.

One of you stay home to give out candy. That's what everyone does.

I buy candy for the elderly neighbor to give out since she can not afford it.

Either you leave a bowl with the "take one please" sign on it and trust that most of the kids will be with parents who will enforce that or one of you stays home. If every family had both parents go out with kids and didn't leave any candy, there'd be no point to trick or treating.

I take our little guys out around our street and the next and my husband or one of the older kids hands out candy. Then we all go over to a friend's house a few blocks away and my husband takes the younger kids to a few houses there. When we leave, we put the candy in a bowl on the front porch. Sometimes when we come back it's all gone but many years, there is some left.

Wow, we live on a very busy street. I have never had anyone take all of the candy when we left a bowl on the front porch. I always assume the best in people..

You could just leave a portion of the bag candy in a bowl on your porch, that way when you get home you can hand out the rest.\ if someone does take all of your candy.

I have had neighbors leave a bag for us to hand out for them, and I once left a bag with them, when were gone for a few days and were not going to be here for Halloween.

The code in our neighborhood, is to turn off the lights if you are not handing out candy.

We have a lot of kids in our neighborhood and there are A LOT of people that leave a bowl on the porch with a note to take one. Yes, you are right, some unsupervised kid may take the whole bowl, but at least the home owner tried. My hubby always stayed home to man the door, now that we have a 15 year old he gets door duty.

Happy Halloween

M

I always buy candy, we go out early and some kids come later,when we are back home. I leave a small bowl, I figure the ones who come early are young and supervised by their parents. It doesnt seem right to take your child trick or treating to get candy but not attempt to give out candy to others.

My husband takes our daughter. I stay home and hand out candy.

If you have older kids why not see if they'd want to stay behind and hand out

Buy a small bag of candy for when you are home.
My kids are 9 & 6 and since they've started trick or treating my husband and I take turns taking them out and staying home to hand out candy.

I'm sorry, but you want your kids to be able to go out and get candy, but won't leave any out while you are gone?
So what if someone takes the whole bowl? It happens, but rarely. In the 10 years I have not been home for trick or treaters, I have left a bowl and have only found it empty once and that was when I didn't return until 2 am.
How would you feel if you took your kids trick or treating and your neighbors skipped buying candy because they only had your kids ring the bell in previous years?
If you want to skip Halloween, fine. But to take your kids out for candy and not reciprocate is just cheap.

One of us always stayed home when our daughter was younger. Sometimes, we'd switchout with taking her but around here a lot of dads take the children. We live in a large tightknit neighborhood and I average over 200 kiddos, not including the ones who get dropped off by the van loads from other areas of town. Around here, the van loads get dropped off later so it is easier to figure out since I know most of the kids who come here anyway. I especially figure it out when they speak no English and the parents have a pillowcase for treats for themselves. Ugh

Since I also am a substitute teacher and all the elementary kids know me, I get more kids. I love it.

If you are in a smaller neighborhood that does not participate a lot, I might just have a small amount of candy on hand to pass out when I got home from trick or treating with my daughter.

If we actually got trick or treaters, we'd leave a bowl or an older child would stay home to pass it out. DH and I really enjoy taking DD out when we can find friends to take her out with and would rather not hand out candy than not go out as a family.

Just turn the porch light off if you aren't leaving a bowl.

I just went out and never gave a thought to any kids coming. There were really none in our neighborhood! This year, things have changed. So I plan to leave a bowl out with candy! If some kid takes it all, so be it.

I leave the bowl out with a note saying to take two.

We start out early-ish all together (husband, me, both kids). Our younger daughter is happy once we've gone to a couple of houses, and usually wants to return home at that point. So husband takes youngest home, and they hand out candy together on the front porch (our neighborhood is totally overrun every Halloween with kids from this neighborhood and many others!). I stay with oldest daughter as she trick-or-treats with her friends.

I can tell you we have started buying a lot less. I buy enough for the few stragglers that may show before or after we take our kids out. We do not live in a trick or treating friendly neighborhood. in our house, I try to keep candy out so my husband is the one who goes out and over purchases halloween candy. I set it out by the bowl full with no stipulations what so ever on how many to take, and always end up with leftovers. For me, its not the money, I just don't like to keep the junk food around, so thats why I have stopped buying so much. If you don't want to mess with it then don't. Turn your porch light off and don't feel guilty.
I totally reject the notion that one parent stay home to hand out candy. Its more important to make the memories with your kids. Especially if they are still little.

When my husband worked days he would stay home and hand out the candy while I went out with the kids. It was good that he stayed home because when my younger son was little he usually wanted to come home after an hour, but my older son wanted to go all evening. Since my husband started working evenings I put a sign on the door telling the kids to go next door, then I send a bowl over to the neighbours house. One year my neighbours weren't home so I put out a bowl with a help yourself sign and there was still candy in it when we got home. Most of the kids around here trick-or-treat with parents, so I don't think anyone is going to take the whole bowl. Even the kids who go without parents wouldn't just because there are so many adults around.

One of us goes out with the kids and the other stays home to give out treats. Also, our kids LOVE handing out the candy, after they've done their own trick or treating, and in past years, they have been willing to transfer most of the candy from their bags to the bowl when we have run out. We get a lot of kids in our area, so it has happened pretty regularly that we run out. It's a great way to reduce the amount of candy in the house, and it is a thrill seeing them enjoy being generous. We'll see if they're still willing to do that this year, however...

My husband and I both take our DD out, and don't bother with candy at all.

It may be scroogey, but the couple times we actually stayed home (even prior to DD) we never got more than 5-6 all night. WE were the ones let down by not getting to give any out! Lol. Apparently, no one trick-or-treats our street. To us, the time spent with our daughter together is worth more than a piece of candy or two for a few kids. If anyone stops by after we get back, we just give them a few pieces from our DD's haul. (She is too young to notice. Lol.)

It would be different if we lived somewhere a lot of kids came... But we don't.

One thing people in my neighborhood did when I was growing up was to ask a teenager to house-sit and hand out candy (we had pranksters who would tp or egg houses that didn't give out candy...) when they didn't want to stay home. Most of the time, the teens were happy to do so for the price of a pizza and the leftover candy. :)

I would not buy anything since you're not going to be home. Turn out the light and don't answer the door when you are there.

Just buy a couple of bags so you have candy if kids do come.
I never leave candy out because there's always some kid that cleans out the bowl. :(
We don't split up because we both like to go & see the other kids.