Save the Children...Eat their Candy!

Ahhh candy.  Who doesn't love candy?  That's not a real question, of course everyone loves candy.  Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter.  Whole holidays with their own kind of devoted candy!  Yes, candy is good.  It seems that most people usually favor one type of candy over the other...chocolate vs. fruity.  I, myself, am hands-down a chocolate person.  I will pass up Twizzlers (gelatin rhymes with skeleton!) without a thought, skip the Skittles and Mike 'N Ikes, ignore the Jolly Ranchers and Laffy Taffy.  But put chocolate in front of me, and ooooh we've got trouble.  I will eat myself into a stomach-ache.  Yes, I lack control where chocolate is concerned.

That's why I don't normally buy candy.  Sure, I get the occasional hair up my ass chocolate craving and come home from the store with a couple of gorgeous Cadbury Fruit 'n Nut bars.  But if I have it I eat it till its gone, and if I have a constant supply...well, you get the picture.  So, these holidays come around to replenish my much unneeded secret supply.  You do have a stash spot, don't you?  Every parent needs one.  If candy is freely out in the open at my house, it is fair game for anyone and disappears VERY quickly.  Inevitably, those days come around when you just might actually die if you don't get at least a dang chocolate chip, and when that happens you best be prepared, mama!  Hook yourself up with a good stash spot. 

Now, there is good candy and bad candy.  I'm talking taste and quality here, folks.  Ever have that chocolate-flavored wax?  You know what I mean, especially if you like chocolate.  Companies out there are churning out the most disgusting, artificially flavored garbage, and because it's 'candy', people buy it and kids will eat it.  My kids won't even admit when candy isn't good - ever buy those gross-flavor Jelly Bellys, the ones first seen in Harry Potter?  We bought our son a box of them when he was 3 or 4.  He sat there and chewed on bacon, black pepper, baby powder, sardines, and soap, and though his face told us differently, he would not admit that they were gross.  I swear, as long as it falls under the heading 'candy'...kids will eat it. 

Of course candy isn't health food, that's no secret.  Unfortunately, reading the labels on candy is a necessary evil.  Besides the sugar, the fat, the fat on your body from the sugar, the cavities, your kids with a sugar-buzz...these are all good reasons to not eat it.  Now add in hydrogenation, HFCS, BHT, ridiculous amounts of food colorings, and who knows what else, and it turns into an even bigger problem.  Combine this with the 'fake' stuff - that chocolate-flavored lard I mentioned - and we're talking disgust-o-rama.  You know what's funny though?  People keep buying it.  Companies keep making it.  Have they even tried this stuff?  I would think - even hope - not.   

As many of your kids probably do, my kids get multiple Easter baskets.  The first came this past weekend, and my friend's kids got their firsts last weekend.  Coloring books, stickers, beach towels (my request, aren't I brilliant?!), some little toys and stuff.  A chocolate bunny, and one for each of them...FULL BAGS of Hershey's coconut cream-filled kisses and Reese's peanut butter eggs.  My friends kids also got full bags of marshmallow eggs, Tootsie Rolls (who eats those?), and blow pops.

For mine, one bag each is really minimal considering what they've gotten in the past.  Enter the Easter Egg Hunt.  I ended up with a plastic grocery bag FULL of foil-wrapped 'chocolate' coins, shaped 'chocolate' with a picture on the foil, those little 'chocolate' eggs with the rice krispies in them, jelly beans and robins eggs, mini peanut butter cups and a variety of kisses.  My husband ended up taking all this stuff to work.  What a waste!

That is, of course, it went to work after I sorted it.  You can't get rid of good chocolate and for the record, full-bags of peanut butter eggs must be confiscated immediately.  Cadbury eggs?  Hide 'em.  See's Candy?  You shouldn't have!  (But I'm glad you did).  Take it, stash it away for later.

You see, as long as kids aren't picky about their candy, there are certain types of candy that musn't be left in their hands.  Some kids won't even differentiate between booger-flavor beans and normal ones...and waxy chocolate vs. Godiva?  Forget it.  They will gobble it up, heedless of the quality.

This year when your kids get their Easter baskets, don't let them open anything right away.  Take it away, under the guise of sorting out the bad, hydrogenated, artificial garbage, sort out those quality candies and chocolates that only an adult connoisseur and consumer of 'the real stuff' can appreciate.  Find a good spot and hide it, then dole it out to yourself over the next couple of weeks. 

As long as the kids are left with a couple handfuls of the stuff they love, they will be thrilled.  They don't need mass amounts.  Remember when we were kids and we would trick or treat until 10 pm, and come home with a pillow case 3/4 full and so heavy we only came home cause we couldn't carry it anymore?  I often wonder why our parents let us do that!  We had candy for a YEAR, and anything that was left over by the next Halloween got thrown away, only cause there just wasn't room after bringing in the new haul.  Not any more!  My kids get to trick or treat for 2 or 3 hours, and whatever they get is what they get (after the adults pick out their favorites for 'the stash'), and it's not that much.

So, folks, here's what I charge you with:  When the Easter baskets (or Halloween bag, or stocking of Christmas goodies) come in, it is your right as a parent to sort it into three sections.  To the left set aside the really gross stuff, the over-colored, overly artificial, not-even-food-anymore garbage, then throw it away or send it to work before the kids even have a chance to miss it.  To the right set aside the really good stuff that your non-discriminating candy-gobblers won't miss anyway, and hide it away in your stash.  Whatever is left in the middle is theirs to keep.  Everybody wins.

You can thank me later...just send chocolate and I'll understand.