Halloween Reform: A Postmortem

Not to be a killjoy, but after hearing on NPR last week that the average American child collects 10 pounds of candy every Halloween, I decided to heed the words of Mahatma Ghandhi and be the change I wish to see in the world.

This figure staggered me as much as the statistic recently cited here by Mary Winter that the average American consumes 220 pounds of flesh per year. I too worry about the harm such excesses cause to both the environment and the body.

Lynn Colwell and Corey Colwell-Lipson, co-authors of "Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family," recommend hosting a party where everyone tosses candy wrappers in a compost bin and offers it up on Craigslist or Freecycle. They also suggest transforming the pretty wrappers into purses, wallets or picture frames.

I'm intimidated by composting, and I've never been the crafty mom, so I chose to take on that scary 10-pound number instead. I wasn't going to do anything radical like give out individually wrapped bags of carrot sticks. Rather, I'd heed the "less is more" strategy Domenica Marchetti offered in WomanUp the other day in regard to eating meat.

I told my husband about my plan to distribute only one or two pieces of candy to each trick-or-treater this year while he skeptically unpacked four small bags of candy from a grocery bag. "Don't you think we're going to need more candy?" he asked, looking at me like I was the Grinch who stole Halloween.

Maybe he was right. I lost my "be the change" mojo, and when the first few costumed visitors rang the bell, I gave them handfuls of Snickers bars. Nervous that I really would run out of candy, I pillaged our pantry for the Whole Foods' single-serving pretzel bags I'd been packing in my kids' lunches. Maybe handing out pretzels would count as part of my reform effort.

Then the doorbell rang and a precocious 5-year old Cat in the Hat narrowed her eyes and pointed to the purple Good & Plenty wrapper poking through the bags of pretzels.

"I'd rather have that," she said.

My response was too lame to repeat in this forum. When the pretzels ran out, I gave out one piece of candy to each subsequent trick-or-treater. Most said thank you; others said nothing, and only one reacted as if I'd handed her a raisin and asked her to split it with her siblings.

I ended up sticking to my Light Sabres for the remainder of the evening, but the largest challenge awaits me. I must confront my own children, whose post-Halloween ritual includes swapping treats with the passion my husband used to trade baseball cards. (Who knew that one Triple Chocolate Kit Kat is worth six Tootsie Rolls?) Soon, sometime this week, I swear, I will inform them that most of their Halloween spoils will go to a pediatric dentist who I hear is sending candy to Iraq. But for now, I'll let them sort and trade, and savor a fraction of their 10 pounds of loot.