Trick or Treat! Trading Sweets for Life Lessons.

Halloween was a lot of fun this year.  My girls are both old enough to do thoroughly enjoy the holiday.

This year both of my girls wanted "store-bought" costumes.  Mixed feelings on that one...while I welcomed not having to slave over detailed handmade costumes this year, part of me felt a bit sad about not making them.  Anyway, this year we ended up with the Vampire and the Princess...two polar opposites!

After the school parades and festivities, we attended a super fun party with friends and then headed out for some traditional trick-or-treating.

We spent a good 2 hours roaming (more like running) through our neighborhood for holiday treats.  By the end of the evening we came home with a ton of loot!

Whoa!  That's A LOT of candy!  Over 5 pounds to be exact!  Both of my girls enjoyed 2 pieces of their choice that evening and one piece the following day.  But if you have been following me for long, you know that I am a huge advocate of eating healthy, organic, non-GMO foods.  Add to that my youngest daughters allergies to soy and you can figure out that having all of this candy (or even a portion of it) in my house is not typical, nor desired.

So...I was trying to think of a way to rid my home of the sweets.  I came across the "Switch Witch" idea - which is really cute, but having never shared the idea before, I didn't think it would work...especially for my older daughter.  So I decided to come up with my own version.

CASH FOR CANDY
Three days after Halloween, after the novelty and excitement of the holiday has worn off, I offered the girls a "deal".  Cash for Candy.  If they gave me ALL of their Halloween candy, I would pay them $25.  If they gave me half of their candy, I would give them $10.  They could use the cash to buy themselves something, or could bank it.  Of course they could bypass the entire deal and just keep the candy if they wanted...

My youngest daughter's eyes lit up immediately.  I barely finished explaining the deal to them when she jumped up, ran to get her bag of candy and deposited on my lap.  "I'll take the $25!" she yelled.  When can we go to Toys R Us?   Score!

My older daughter had a more difficult time.  She wasn't so eager to part with all that sweetness....She tried negotiating, "How about $1 per piece?" or "What will you give me for 10 pieces of candy instead?"  I explained that there was no negotiating.  The deal was the deal.  Decide.

After much internal debate, she too handed over her entire bag of candy!  Woo hoo!  Mom gets rid of every last candy bar without one tear!  Granted, I made the deal pretty sweet...it's costing me $50 and a trip to Toys R Us.  But I choose $25 because I knew that the majority of the things they would want would be around the $20 price point (and because we discuss prices when shopping, so did they!)  $25 made the deal enticing.  On a side note, neither of my girls get an allowance for their chores (we consider it plain old responsibility around here) so this was a chance for them to "earn" some money which they don't have many opportunities to do.

So what to do with 5 pounds of candy?  Well, throwing it away is just wasteful, so that wasn't an option.  I hunted around the internet and found Operation Shoebox.   Operation Shoebox is a 501 c(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to show our troops deployed outside the USA that we care by sending packages, letters, and bulk items to them during their deployment. 100% of the donations they receive go to our troops.

PERFECT!
So our candy is packaged up and ready to ship out tomorrow morning!

Not only do did our kids give up their unhealthy snacks, they practiced the art of negotiation, practiced decision making skills, will get a math lesson at the toy store and doing a good deed by donating to a worthy cause.

Awesome!