Halloween Revisited

by Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D.

I have an outrageous idea. Why not actually plan for Halloween this year? You know you have sugar sensitivity, and you may know your children have inherited it, too, which means they way they respond to sugar and refined carbohydrates can make they wacky, moody, angry, tearful and tantrum-throwing, imbalanced little people. Halloween is certainly a holiday that could fuel a sugar sensitive child the wrong way, but it doesn’t have to. We have compiled some really fun information from our archives. Read it, talk with your kids or friends and think about what fun things you can do.

Dealing with Candy

The Halloween Witch: “We only trick-or-treat in our small neighborhood and in the downtown-hosted trick-or-treat. After the downtown event, we walk right over to the police or fire station and donate the candy to them. They like to have it to hand out to kids during their calls and such. As for the other candy they receive, we allow them to have one or two pieces on Halloween and keep one piece for each day of the following week. The rest gets left in the container they trick-or-treated in, and at night the Halloween Witch comes and takes their candy, which she donates elsewhere. She leaves them an irresistible but inexpensive toy in its place. They love the toy so much that they don’t fuss about the candy.”—Marnie

The Buy Back Concept: “Last year was the first year I tried any ‘buy back’ program and it worked! I had purchased a gift for each of my kids, who were 4 and 5 in advance. On Halloween night, after trick-or-treating was over, I pulled out the toys to show them and their eyes lit up! I told them they could have the toy if they traded in their candy (except for the two pieces I allowed them to keep). They eagerly made the trade and the candy went in the trash. I’m not sure what I'll offer them this year, but now that they’re expecting it, I think it will be another easy trade for them. As far as what I hand out, I went to the store looking for individual popcorn servings but they were sold out. Instead, my husband and I found these really cool-looking orange and black Halloween bags of pretzels shaped like bats! I was practically dancing out of the store — not only is it not sugar, it looks normal and festive and not weird!”—Jennifer

Alternatives to Candy: “We gave out whistles to our trick-or-treaters. We get about 250 kids and I’m happy to report it went over very well. We got positive feedback and you could hear the happy sounds of whistles down the streets after children left our house. We even had a few children come back asking for another whistle, saying they dropped theirs. I do recall in past years of serving sugar how some children would greedily grab a handful, but I don’t ever recall a child coming back for another piece of candy because our treats were that worthy!”—Michele

“I give out non-sugar treats: balloons, fancy pencils, Halloween rings, cute hair ties, stickers, plastic bats, rats and spiders, etc. Kids did say thanks and some of them looked excited and had fun picking through to see what they wanted.”—Carol Ann

Parties and Haunted Houses

Having a Halloween party is a great alternative to trick-or-treating. Everyone can still dress up in costumes and eat fun food, or come over to carve jack-o-lanterns and celebrate the fall harvest. The focus isn’t on filling a pillowcase with candy, but about being together and having fun.

“Our first Halloween party was a blast. I was almost sad that we were missing trick-or-treating, but no longer. The kids had so much fun and sugar was not missed one bit. I made a lot of good food, BBQ chicken, sweet potato muffins, ‘severed finger’ cookies, deviled eggs, no-sugar pumpkin pie with cream, chips, salsa veggies, etc. We had some games to play, but the kids mostly did their own thing. My favorite part was setting up a station in the garage with scary music and I took one kid in at a time blindfolded and introduced them to my friend ‘Corpus McCool’ who was dearly departed and unfortunately, falling to pieces. Then I placed their hands in several bowls of foods which were ‘body parts,’ my favorite being the over-cooked cauliflower head for a brain. The kids loved it and even a few of the adults!”—Heather

“My family has always preferred hosting a haunted house on Halloween, and my son has been more than willing to give up trick-or-treating to participate in scaring people for fun instead. We do get a bit gruesome, but people love to visit us every year to see what wacky thing we’ll do next. We have simulated electric chair deaths, guillotine beheadings and of course, zombies popping out from unsuspecting places. It’s great fun for everyone, especially those of us doing the scaring!”—Katherine

Games

There are many games that can be made into Halloween themes without much effort. Pin the tail on the pumpkin, for example, or musical chairs to Halloween music. Some parents have a prize bucket filled with goodie bags containing little toys (notepads, pencils, spider rings, tattoos, stickers, rubber snakes, puzzles, etc.) that are awarded to winners of each game.

Hunt the Pumpkin: Beforehand, we drew, colored and cut out a whole bunch of paper pumpkins. We put point values on each one, ranging from 5 points to 30. Then we hid them around the house. The kids ran around looking for them and added up the points at the end. Whoever had the most points won a prize from the bucket.

Mummy Wrap: This works best if the parents volunteer to be mummified, because we’ve learned none of the kids liked being the mummy, only wrapping the mummy. We wrote out jobs (wrap left leg, wrap right arm, etc.) and had kids draw a job card. You need about 2-3 rolls of toilet paper per adult mummy.

Trick or Treat: We made little notes that either said ‘treat’ or gave a trick to be performed (rub your belly and pat your head, spin 10 times while hopping on one foot, sing the ABCs, cackle like a witch, scream in fright, make a monkey face, do the chicken dance, cross your eyes, etc.). Start with a folded over piece of wrapping paper. Tape one note on it, then wrap it again. Tape another note and wrap it again, and so on until you’ve used up all the notes and you have a big package (old newspaper or wrapping paper scraps can definitely be used for this). Then it’s like musical chairs: you play the music, and kids pass the package around. When the music stops, whoever is holding the package unwraps the outer layer and either gets a treat (prize from bucket) or does the trick.

The Gross Game: Turn the lights down very low. Tell a scary story about a person who died right on that very spot many years ago. Then slowly pass around his brains (cooked cauliflower chunk), his heart (cooked peeled tomato), his eyeballs (peeled grapes), his hair (corn silk), his nose (stubby part of chicken drumstick worked for this), his ears (dried peach or apricot), and finally, the worms that crawled over his dead body (cooked spaghetti). After the story is done, have the kids write down what they think eat body part was made of. The one with the most right answers gets a prize.

Charades: Write down some cards with Halloween-related characters or actions (carving a pumpkin, flying on a broomstick, witch, bat, ghost, spider, etc.) and place in a bucket. To play, kids draw one card and act it out while teammates try to guess the answer.

Halloween Bingo: Make or buy bingo cards and use pumpkin seeds as markers.

Spider Web: Roll cheap yarn into balls (bigger if you have more kids at the party), about one per kid. To start the game, tie the end of a ball loosely around each child’s waist. Then have kids stand in a big circle and throw the yarn balls to each other. They keep throwing the balls to another kid until the balls disappear. Then they end up looking like a giant spider web. The best part is that it takes them a long time to unwrap themselves from this one!

Murder: Write out cards for the number of kids you’ll have, with all but one reading ‘Innocent’ and the last one reading ‘Murderer.’ Kids draw a card, and then walk around shaking hands with each other. When the murderer shakes hands and squeezes twice, that person is ‘murdered’ and has to wait until the murderer moves on to shake another hand before ‘dying.’ Then everyone tries to guess who the murderer is.

Festive Food Ideas

Just because it’s Halloween doesn’t mean you can’t make festive foods that are still healthy and sugar-free. Give these terrific, creative ideas a try, or think up some on your own.

Blood Soup: Roast five medium beets in tin foil in 400 degree oven for 1-1/2 hours. When cool, peel and chop. Saute two chopped onions in olive oil until translucent, then add three sliced fennel bulbs and 1/4 cup vegetable/chicken broth and cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add three more cups broth and the beets and simmer 20 minutes more. Then puree in blender and serve with a dollop of sour cream. Fantastic color!

Pumpkin Sauce for Pasta: Saute two chopped onions and two chopped orange peppers in olive oil until soft. Add 1-1/2 cup canned pumpkin and 1 cup chicken/vegetable broth. Simmer for 15-20 minutes. Thicken with cream, or for a reduced-fat version, thicken with arrowroot and nonfat powdered milk. Serve over whole wheat or brown rice pasta.

Pumpkin Chili: Follow your favorite recipe for chili, but add one or two cups of canned pumpkin.

Orange Dip: Cook 1 cup orange lentils in chicken or vegetable broth until done. Puree with 16 oz. cream cheese, several cloves minced garlic, salt and pepper, and curry powder to taste.

Chips for Dipping: Take whole wheat lavash bread (or tortillas) and cut into Halloween shapes with cookie cutters. Brush with butter (red and yellow food coloring added) and put on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for five minutes, or until crisp. This takes a long time, but gives you a good use for those cookie cutters that you might not be using as much anymore!

Pumpkin Bagel Faces: Served halved mini-whole wheat bagels topped with cream cheese with red and yellow food coloring mixed in to make them orange. Put on a platter along with pepperoni halves, sliced black and green olives, shredded carrots, raisins, halved cherry tomatoes and sliced mozzarella cut into triangles. The kids can make pumpkin faces on the bagels.

Spider-wiches: Spread peanut butter on rounds of bread or on round crackers. Add pretzel sticks or chow mein noodles as legs, then top with another round. Add two dots of peanut butter and either tiny red pepper bits or raisins for eyes.

Bloodshot Eyes: Hard-boil some eggs (undercooked slightly is easier to manage). Cut them in half lengthwise and put the yolks in a bowl. Smash up the yolks with a fork and add some mayo, mustard and a little milk to get a spreadable consistency. Curry can be added also, to taste. Spoon into the egg mixture into the egg-white halves. Top with half a green olive with pimento showing. Finally, take a pointy knife, touch the knife into red food coloring (a tiny dot goes a long way) and make small slits into the egg white, raying out from the yolk part.