As Halloween approaches this year, I find myself thinking of....what else....candy. Halloween is like the Superbowl of Candy. When I was a kid, searching through my pumpkin at the end of the night to see what I got was one of the biggest thrills of the whole year. I think my favorite part was pulling something cool out and thinking "Wow, I don't even remember getting that one!". The whole ritual and the candy... it was mystery...it was excess...it was sweet. Truly better than digging through a trunk of gold pieces (when I was eight).
So, you might ask, knowing what I know about the chocolate industry...what does that mean for my holiday candy planning?
Here is a little story about last Easter. Last Easter I had just learned about Fair Trade. I had just heard this stuff about the chocolate industry. And I had found myself wondering what exactly the Easter Bunny was going to come up with for my kids. Because let's face it: we all know that an Easter Basket that only contains Peeps is a pretty weak way to greet the dawn.
Luckily for me, my church bookstore decided to sell Fair Trade Easter candy. They had chocolate bunnies, little chocolate eggs with hard sugar shells, and some filled chocolate eggs that had stuff like caramel in them. I know - YUM, right? These items were all beautifully foil wrapped and lovingly created, and, like most Fair Trade chocolate - they were more expensive than the alternatives. But after I saw them, I knew I was going to bite the bullet and go Fair Trade on this holiday. I was ready to take a first, wobbly step out onto the platform of change.
Now let me add to this story, that my lovely daughter had not, until this past year, had the "true" Easter experience of the Easter Bunny bringing scads of candy to her home. My husband and I thought on her first few Easters, that we could get away with hiding Easter eggs that had play-dough and stickers in them, with the rationale that what she didn't know, wouldn't hurt her. But, this year she was three, and thus, she knew the hard facts. The Easter Bunny brings candy.
So. Operation Fair Bunny was set. And the night before Easter, a pink and green Easter basket was carefully filled with fake grass, Fair Trade chocolate goodies, some Peeps, and a toothbrush that played "Here Comes Peter Cottontail". The toothbrush (which was an enormous hit, to you doubters out there) was purchased at Walgreens, a day or two before Easter. And while I was walking the aisle at Walgreens at that time, I came upon The Display of chocolate Easter bunnies and Easter swag. I had a moment. I stopped in front of a bunny that was literally the size of an actual rabbit, except it was made entirely out of chocolate. It was, and I don't think I'm exaggerating here, FRIGGING HUGE. And I thought, oh man. This bad boy in your basket would inspire shock and awe that wouldn't soon be forgotten. And the next thought I had, immediately following this thought was: Um, yeah, I can do without my kid gnawing away on this thing for weeks, thanks. For multiple reasons. I left Bunnyzilla at the store and came home and tucked the toothbrush into the pink and green basket and looked it over again, to make sure that it was a good basket. And it was. And I realized that I could, in fact, up the ante on the basket over the years, making it more special with each passing year, and still do it with a Fair Trade supply of candy if I wanted. I just needed to use imagination. (Although I have since discovered that I can buy big bombastic chocolate goodies from Fair Trade retailers too, if I'm out of ideas.) It felt good at the time though, knowing that I could wow my kid without the assistance of Hershey's, if I wanted to do so.
And the next morning, my daughter ate a breakfast of Fair Trade chocolate. I can report that she was very happy until about 1pm, when she was overcome by the vast amounts of sugar that go into candy - ethically produced, or not. And then it was meltdown city. But it was chocolaty fun while it lasted. In fact, my one-year old thought that it all looked so good that he waited until we were all out of the room, somehow found a foil wrapped chocolate caramel egg and had the good sense to just cram the whole dang thing in his mouth, so that I came back in to see him drooling long brown strings of chocolate out of his mouth onto the couch with a look of pure joy. I think the best thing I can say about that scenario is that it was, in fact, Fair Trade chocolate. I'll let you imagine how it went when we tried to pry that egg out of his mouth. Good times.
So where does that put us for Halloween, you may ask? Well, aside of the Fair Trade chocolate minis that I am going to hand out, along with Skittles, I'm not usually fool enough to purchase anything that looks like it's going to hang around the house for awhile. I did, however, discover that Sweet Earth, the company that made our Easter candy, makes these fabulous Dia De Los Muertes chocolate items. So this might be the year that I help my kids build a little dark chocolate Dia De Los Muertes shrine, complete with skulls and bones, to eat. The Superbowl of Candy is still on.
