I tend to think that the scariest thing about Halloween is all of the candy that is sitting in the cupboards after the big night. This year it is two overflowing mixing bowls worth! It’s not that I don’t eat any candy or don’t want my kids any, it’s that I don’t want us to ONLY eat candy.

The Internet is full of ideas of what to do with the leftover buckets of candy. I’ve read everything from save it for Thanksgiving or Christmas, freeze it, drop chocolate in your coffee, add to milkshakes or cookies, to, use it for science. I found a list, made by a mother of three, Kimberly Crandall, who happens to have an aeronautical engineering degree, of the “10 ways to turn leftover Halloween candy into science.” I love her ideas to microwave marshmallows to watch them turn into the blob and watching your mouth glow fluorescent by chewing Wint-O-Green Lifesavers in the dark.

Typically, what follows Halloween first is the execution of the “Daddy Tax.” Almost 50 bucks in costumes, orchestrating multiple Halloween events, and hearing hour after hour of, “Can I have more candy, nooooow?” earns us a percentage of the loot. I mean, right? After the tax is assessed we try to find a way to pass it out small bits at a time, hoping they forget about it.

Last year at our house we started what we hope becomes a tradition, we added chopped up Halloween candy to pancakes. We started with the recipe my husband swears by, which you can find here! Then we chopped up Snickers, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and MnM’s and added them to the pancakes just after they were poured into the pan. Adding them to the mix doesn’t work the same way we learned with a bunch of wasted chocolate chips once. The Peanut Butter cups and MnM’s were big hits but the peanuts in the Snickers didn’t go over too well.

I did look around for a Candy Buyback program in Edmonds, I called the dentist’s I hear recommended the most on the Edmonds Moms Facebook page and no one was participating. I did find the link to the Halloween Candy Buyback through Operation Gratitude, if you are looking to travel to get some loot for your sugary loot. Operation Gratitude “sends the candy to U.S. Military deployed in harm’s way.” You can click HERE to find participating dentist’s outside of Edmonds.

– By Jen Marx

Jen Marx, an Edmonds Mom of two young boys, is a traffic reporter by dawn and writer and PBJ maker by day. She is always looking for a fun place to take the kids that makes them tired enough to go to bed on time. You can contact Jen with your local event at play@myedmondsnews.com or find her trying to make sense of begging kids to ” just eat the mac n cheese” at SnackMomSyndrome.com. If you have a kid-friendly event you’d like to share, email her at play@myedmondsnews.com.