Halloween should be all about peanut butter kisses

To a household of people trying to lose weight, and with a little boy who doesn’t need to be “sugared up,” Halloween is a bit of a holiday from hell. While some may say the holiday – if it can be called that – is then successfully living up to its reputation and intended purpose, I’ll disagree, mainly because I belong to this family.


Don’t get me wrong. I love Halloween; in fact, I believe it’s the third best one, right behind Thanksgiving and Christmas. I love the decorations associated with Halloween, and the costumes people come up with for the occasion can be pants-splitting hilarious.

And the entire tradition of going from house to house dressed in a costume and asking people for candy is mind-boggling in a “can we really do that?” sort of way.

When my wife, Jenny, our 5-year-old son, Braden, and I hit the streets of Plover on Sunday for trick-or-treating, I assumed the candy haul would be about the same as when I was a kid – about half an ice cream pail full of assorted candy, half of which would be the peanut butter kisses in the black or orange wrappers. I often ate all the candy I collected the same night.

Trick-or-treating has evolved since I was a kid, because Braden didn’t collect one peanut butter kiss. Either they don’t make them anymore, the government declared them unfit for consumption (which wouldn’t be surprising, given their tendency to become harder than a rock if exposed to temperatures less than 50 degrees for more than half an hour), or my hometown of Wautoma is strangely unique in the fact peanut butter kisses are only the norm there, and not elsewhere.

In addition, the amount of candy Braden collected was literally 12 times the amount I collected. He filled up an entire canvas shopping bag in a little more than two hours, which may not seem like all that much until you discover exactly how much those bags can hold. At home, we emptied the candy contents of the bag into two giant salad bowls and came to the realization we have enough candy to last the entire family until well past Christmas.

And it’s all good stuff, like miniature candy bars, a few full-size candy bars, individually packaged licorice sticks and rice crispy treats, granola bars, packages of Milk Duds and M&Ms, and even some small bags of chips.

It was all so good that only the truly unusual items stood out to Braden – a package of silly bands, a green stick of licorice, a spider ring, a tube of play dough, and a skeleton decoration. Those were all the items he wanted first.

He wants the candy, too, but Jenny and I limit the amount of sugar we give him, as we’re not big fans of “Hyper Boy.” This means we do not give him any in the morning, and he gets a few items when he gets home in the evening, but only if he’s been a good boy. At this rate, we figure he could get through all the candy by next Halloween.

That’s only if Jenny and I weren’t helping him eat it. We generally keep this type of food out of the house, because if you don’t have it, you won’t eat it. But since we have it, both of us have dipped our paws in the bowls more than a few times. Somebody’s got to eat it, I guess.

I know a solution. More peanut butter kisses. All our problems will be resolved.

Halloween is new No. 1 holiday

As a fan of presents, I’ve always been very fond of Christmas, which was my favorite holiday, and, as a fan of candy, I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Halloween, my No. 2 holiday. But in recent years as the amount I spend on gifts increases equal to the increase in the amount of candy I eat for Halloween, my No. 2 holiday is now my No. 1. (This is why we studied math in school: If X equals the increase in holiday spending and Y equals the increase in candy eating, and X equals Y, then presents cost too much these days, or too many people are benefiting from my Christmas generosity.)
Add a kid to the mix (as my wife and I did a few years ago), plus a few Halloween parties you get to attend, and Halloween becomes the king of all holidays.
Back in the day, when I was young enough to go trick or treating, finding a costume was never a problem. I just took whatever subject I was interested in at the time and found a costume that could be associated with it. Some of my favorite costumes included an alien, ghost, Freddy Krueger and a heavy metal rocker. None of these costumes were very good, since they were either cheap store-purchased costumes or homemade using stuff I found at home, but they were a lot of fun.
My last time trick or treating I got elaborate. I wanted a good costume that people remembered, so I transformed myself into an old woman, complete with a wig from my grandma, high heels, make-up and a blue dress with white polka dots. My friends enjoyed the costume, but didn’t find it particularly good; however, adults got a kick out of it and seemed to enjoy my act, laughing at me continuously. Now I understand what they were laughing at, but at the time I truly thought it was because I was a good performer as an old lady.
I went 20 years without dressing up again (even though I made sure I still enjoyed the candy benefits), but finally donned a costume three years ago. My wife and I were invited to a Halloween party and came up with the perfect matching costumes – myself as “Vegas” Elvis and my wife as his wife, Priscilla. The costumes weren’t great, since we made them ourselves, but I do a mean Elvis impersonation and my wife has always been a fan of the original bee-hived beauty.
Charged up by our return to dressing up for Halloween, we entered the party looking for a good time. To our dismay, nobody else was dressed up and, to our further dismay, they looked at us like we were crazy. “Who are you two supposed to be?” the lame party goers asked. We didn’t stay long.
Last year we went to a Halloween party at our favorite Wautoma restaurant, the Moose Inn (check it out if you’re in Wautoma – The Silvercryst has a wide-spread reputation for being a quality restaurant but locals prefer the Moose). We were assured people would dress up for this party. We were simple, very simple in fact, going as Joe Dirt, the hillbilly movie character David Spade played in a movie several years ago, and his girlfriend. Others attending the party, in very elaborate and hilarious outfits, complimented our costumes. We stayed a long time.
We’ve been invited to a Halloween party in Plover Saturday. We’re excited because it’s a chance for us to meet some locals and hopefully make a few friends, which we are lacking here because we live in Wautoma yet. The party has a theme, the Seventies, so our costumes need to reflect that. I’m still drawing a blank on this one, mainly because I’m too young to vividly recall the decade and everything I’ve seen from the time period is pretty horrendous.
I’m contemplating using a costume from my past – the old lady – and saying I thought the Seventies meant I should dress as someone in his or her seventies. I’m sure that would draw a few laughs.