What do you do about Halloween?

[TigerOnTour]

My kids are late primary/early secondary school age. I tried to say no more trick or treating when the older one reached Y7 but he cried about it. I'm so sick of the obsession with huge bags of sugar. I do take them away and give them out bit by bit, but it lasts months and Christmas is upon us before we are through the bags of loot.

How do other families deal with it? Do you limit the number of houses you visit? I feel like the horriblist bitch whenever I try to put limits on this ridiculous event.

I think most parents who feel as strongly as you clearly do, don't ever take them in the first place?

Otherwise, yes they just limit the amount of houses.

My children don't go t&t. No sugar problem.

Why not let them have a Halloween party instead, that way you control what they are eating… applebobbing, scary film, popcorn, some green smoothie so it looks like slime… job done.

My teen now finds more fun in dressing up and handing out the sweets to the little kids.

I find if you put the sweet trawl in a tin in the cupboard after a couple days they don’t even ask any more.

I was talking about this yesterday with my DC, who are now in their early 20s. They went trick or treating once. To the house next door (pre arranged), then back home again. They were about 4 and 8 at the time. We live in an area that's very into Halloween, and Trick or Treat. Personally I hate it, so when mine got a pass for one night, it was a massive moment for them!🤣

I just accept that it’s once a year and don’t stress about it.

Mine are 12, 8, 6 & 4 and we have never done it. They know friends who do of course. I always make sure we do some fun baking so they don't feel like they are missing out. They love carving pumpkins. It was never a big thing in mine or DH childhood either. I can't stand all the cheap polyester outfits, junk food with colourings and chemicals etc.. just tacky nonsense. Sad people seem to be leaning towards the American ott tradition of Halloween.

My dc are much older now, but I never had a problem with it tbh. They had an otherwise healthy diet.

When we lived in the US the DC would trick or treat, eat candy that evening (they quickly got fed up of eating a lot of candy) and then the rest was bagged up and taken to our church where they would put it in candy dishes to go on the lunch tables when they did the weekly lunch for the AIDS patients at the local hospital.

Is there a care home or old people's home who would like candy donations for their lunches?

Never had a problem! They love going, get a load of sweets, eat too many that evening and then a bit the next day or two and then it's forgotten.

This Only on mumsnet is it such a big deal.

My two loved it! We went down one long street which went all out on Hallowe’en including mulled wine and cider for the adults and lots of parkin, it was a very sociable event and a highlight of the community calendar every year. I quite miss it to be honest.

I did make sure they had roughly equal amounts of sweets, ate the nicest stuff myself, then gave them a bit every day until it was all gone.

Sweets last for ages.

DS loves going. I’ve told him this will be his last one as he’s in year 6. He’s accepted it well. Had he cried, I would have explained my reasoning in greater detail and stuck to my decision.

Halloween is my youngest's favourite time of year. Just limit the number of houses you go to if you're that stressed about it, but otherwise like another poster I just unclench that it's once a year (and we are a mostly UPF free house!)

This. There are some fun sponges on here 😆

What's the big deal? I'm failing to see what's so awful about trick or treating. My children have always loved it and because of that I will happily go out with them and their little plastic tubs knocking on neighbours doors getting their sweets. The bigger their haul at the end of the night the more excited they are. Like someone else said, they get back home, eat a bunch and forget about them. They also love the kids coming to our house and giving out the sweets that we have for them
Plus I love seeing the teeny ones in their outfits. It's one night of the year.

Same. We have friends and their kids round for an easy dinner then we take the kids out, we take turns hosting each year, they are out for about an hour and know to only go to houses with decorations, most of which leave a tub on the doorstep.
Sweets the get spread out over a few weeks

I just let mine go for it and eat as much candy as they want. It usually lasts about a week. After they lose interest, I dip into it. I love me some mini KitKat & sour patch kids.

I miss it now that kids are older. Never did it when I was young (50 years ago!) and absolutely loved taking mine these last few years. As for the sweets - don't mind a bit of chocolate myself!

At secondary age surely they could just go round anyway if they felt like it? I often do question kids who look like they are 13 plus. Like 'aren't you a bit old for this?' one of them responded by saying he was the 16 year old legal guardian to the others who were about 11-13. Hmmm...
And they weren't even in costume? Lol

I think they'll be pretty soon growing out of the novelty of trick or treat. You could point out it's meant to be for little kids. They might take the hint that maybe it was time to grow up a bit?

It's kind of self limiting. It becomes very uncool to go t&t for most kids and they move on to house parties/ movies. I wouldn't sweat the small stuff, your y7 doesn't look so different to a y6, nobody who has their pumpkins out would hold a grudge

We go T&T every year. We love Halloween. My kids love it and I enjoy taking them.

We go out for a good couple of hours only visiting houses that are decorated.

The more sweets the better. No, they don't eat them all in one go, they last a good while.

Managed to arrange this year so we will be in the car all evening driving home 250 miles from my parents so we can miss the whole thing. I had to go T and T'ing last year for the first time as DD was at a party before and I couldn't really just take her home when she knew all her friends were going. Hoping never to have to again but we'll see.

I just found it excruciating. I've never done it, never knew anyone who did do it when I was young. It's a tradition entirely outside of my experience so it feels really cringey to start pretending otherwise.

We have coeliac disease in our family, so we're already a bit limited (I sort through what they get or guide them to choose what they can/can't have at doors). But I just let them have what they like really; it's only one day, it's not a big deal. Most years we do a small bit of trick or treating (not every year, depends on all sorts) and then have a little Halloween party, so lots of the sweets are consumed in one night and shared, or just get forgotten about once the excitement dies down.

It's a lovely thing for them to do. They get excited about the whole thing; they'll soon think they're too cool for it, so just let them enjoy being young. I didn't do it when I was a kid, but it doesn't have to be the whole event. Do duck apple and snap apple when they get home, make a little buffet, let them have that to look forward to.

We've never done it but we've dressed up, had friends over for "scary" movie night and answered the door to trick or treaters.

We all felt a bit sad when they got to about 12 and had to stop going. We watch a horror film now with treats and sweets and decorations and at half term we're taking them to a theme park which is doing Halloween events.