Tempted By Leftover Halloween Candy?

We hope you and your family had a nice Halloween. We both had a lot of fun trick-or-treating with the kids. As a result there's a huge bowl of candy sitting in each of our kitchens. It's almost impossible to muster enough self-control to not sneak the occasional piece of candy with the temptation sitting right in front of us. Something had to be done...

We've been emailing back and forth with ideas on how to "get rid" of all that candy and thought we'd share some of our favorites with you.

1) Save it for decorating a gingerbread house for Christmas, or make Christmas ornaments out of the candy. Make a batch of salt dough and cut out cookie shapes. Bake the dough according to your directions, then glue candy on it to decorate. Coat your ornament with an acrylic sealer to make it last for years.

2) Take leftover candy to the office and share it with colleagues. Even if those with kids have had their fill of candy, co-workers without kids will enjoy the childhood treats.

3) Fill a bag or empty coffee can with the leftover candy and take it to a local charity, nursing home or homeless shelter.

4) Wrap a few pieces of candy for each day from now until Christmas, number them and let your child open one each day - Think of it as an extended advent calendar.

5) Check with your child's teacher to see if she would like a bag of candy to use as rewards in the classroom.

6) When the snack cravings hit, keep some healthy alternatives around like yogurt, caramel rice cakes, chocolate covered strawberries, frozen grapes, or some dry fruit.

7) When everything else fails, throw the extra candy out so you won't be tempted to eat it all.

Take care,

Susanne Myers & Christine Steendahl