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Costumes, candy weigh heavily on minds, hips
If the popularity of a holiday can be determined by the number of plastic storage containers tucked away in a basement, then Halloween comes in a close second only to Christmas at my house.
Actually, if the costumes which have mysteriously migrated to the dress-up boxes were counted, Halloween might assume "most items taking up space for one holiday" status.
Halloween is always a big deal in any house with small children. As soon the calendar begins to near October, the begging begins in my house.
"When are we getting out the decorations?"
"When are we going to figure out costumes?"
"When am I going to stop buying six bags of Halloween candy since we live in the country and don't have any trick-or-treaters?"
It only took half-an-hour to unload the decorations throughout the house.
(This includes a Halloween-themed candy dish which remains empty for the duration of the holiday because no one in my family including my self can demonstrate any self-control around candy, so I'm not exactly sure why I purchased the bowl.)
The costumes on the other hand are still waiting to be decided upon. We have several boxes devoted just to costumes, but many are out-grown, are for the wrong gender, are an embarrassment to be seen in public.
Plus, we're at that awkward stage where my children want to actually decide on their costume rather than me just telling them. Where as I go for the themes such as the entire cast from the Wizard of Oz or Winnie-the-Pooh, they are pushing for a witch and her entourage of four Darth Vaders. Black is obviously a popular theme here.
I have a problem with paying full price for a Halloween costume because it the least used item of clothing. While children regularly grow out of their clothes before they can be worn out, the situation is even worse with Halloween costumes.
It's easy to spend $20 on a pre-made costume which will be worn once, twice if the child can find a Halloween party to attend. Three times if you can convince your child that their wrists and ankles should be showing.
We're fortunate that many of my family's costumes can be handed down to a younger sibling. Many of the costumes are in decent shape with the exception of the large stains down the chest from years of drooling and dropping of candy.
There is still one problem with this theory of reusing costumes: None of my daughter's younger brothers want to go as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz or as Princess Barbie with her pink and purple flowing gown.
In the end, costumes need not be that expensive. I still have a costume I wore several years ago and just can't bear to get rid of. The costume involved only a pink sheet, draped over the body in the style of a ghost, and a shoe, resting on the top of the head and taped in place.
The result: I was a wad of gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe.
For some reason, my husband didn't borrow this idea during costume day at work recently.
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Once parents have the issue of costumes solved, there is still one additional item to resolve: How much candy to buy and where to put it until the big day arrives.
We don't have to buy a lot of candy since we live in the country, but we still end up with bags and bags of chocolate by Halloween. Add the bags of candy the children bring home from school and from trick-or-treating and a fight is on for the next three months to rid the house of anything sweet.
If you decide to keep the candy around, for the sake of your waistline, it's better to just put the candy away, out of sight and out of mind. If that's not possible, at least put the candy in the location that requires you to get up and walk to it rather than just reaching for it from the comfort of your chair, a fact that has been proven in a study from Cornell University.
According to the study conducted during Secretary's Week, secretaries ate more candy if it was on their desk as opposed to placement six feet away of the Hershey kisses.
Additionally, their judgment was clouded by the proximity of the candy. The secretaries overestimated how many Hershey kisses they ate if they had to get up, but underestimated how many they ate from the bowls on their desks.
The researchers concluded that the less effort required to eat, the easier it was to forget how much they ate. That's why if you have to go out, kill your dinner, clean it and prepare it for your entire family, surprisingly you're much more likely to remember eating.
On the other hand, the memory fades quickly if your entire effort involves ripping open the plastic on that bag of Reese's Cups and ends with the strain of pulling the paper from the chocolate.
But it sure tastes better even if you don't remember eating it five minutes later.