To not give out sweets at halloween?

[nappyaddict]

What do people think about halloween themed stickers, pencils, rubbers, balloons etc instead?

And does anyone actually give money or fruit?

pencils, balloons (buy a multipack & blow them up, tie with string on each one) all that sort of stuff sounds great :) Not fruit, nor money though I used to get money on my rounds

snort at butt germs [hgrin]

I did that too, Beertrix, to pad out the sweetie bowl and offer an alternative - I think only teen girls and my DDs nice best friend took the satsumas (the best friend helped DD eat the leftovers anyway!)

They look nice and festive and DD enjoyed drawing on the faces.

FWIW I think it's sensible not to eat unwrapped sweets... but fruit - it's madness not to accept fruit. If cakes/sweets/treats were home made & wrapped that'd be fine by me.

I wouldn't risk giving out fruit because it's nice and easy to throw... although that reminds me of a class council discussion we had about the problems of the older kids using their breaktime fruit as football subsitutes and the kids ernestly coming up with the solution that the fruit tuck shop should only sell fruit that doesn't roll (by this point I was trying to hide the fact I was dying to laugh by hiding behind the minutes paper).

I remember a house that used to give us pomegranates....I'd never had one before haha

If cider or juice is served to children at a Halloween party..

You see, we brits are weird. We're quite happy not to be paranoid about fruit, but would be aghast at a party offereing kids cider

(Yes, I know you think it means 'non-alcoholic apple juice' but be careful if you bring your kids over here!)

(that quote was from the USDA link - demonstrates nicely why the guidelines of one culture don't always translate!)

Yes you have to give sweets! That's the whole point!

Don't be such a stick in the mud.