healthy halloween

Halloween jack o'lantern | photo: Cindy H Photography

It was another great, fun-filled twitter party over at the Holistic Mom's Network where it happens to be Holistic Living Month (and for a limited time there's a discount on membership, use the code HMN11).

The theme of the evening was the upcoming Halloween festivities; the tweets and links were flying fast and furious.  Here's the roundup:

For those who are looking for Halloween candy choices that are not loaded with artificial colors, HFCS, or other nasty ingredients consider getting yours from the Natural Candy Store, as they put it, "all of the fun, without any of the funny stuff."  Another company, Yummy Earth, also sells organic candy.  Here's an article I wrote about healthier choices for Halloween.  It turns out some families don't give candy but give gifts instead such as Smencils, healthy juice boxes, or stickers.  And a small, free, e-book is available to help you understand some of the ways to have an earth-friendly Halloween.

For those who are more interested in the fun of dressing up and socializing but don't want their children to eat the candy they receive there were a lot of suggestions about what to do with all of it:

• The Switch Witch book seemed to be a popular suggestion
• Reverse Trick-or-Treating was another popular idea and one that I wish I had known about when my kids were young
• The idea of Candy Experiments looked interesting although I'm sure a fair amount gets eaten on the way to the laboratory 
• Donating the candy is one way to get it out of the house
• Saving the candy and using it to decorate gingerbread houses for the winter holidays is another idea to use it up

The topic of holistically eco-friendly decorations came up.  Of course decorating with gourds, branches, and leaves is one idea but there were some other ideas mentioned that tied in to this theme as well.  The use of eco felt is something that I had not been aware of, what a great product and one that can be used anytime, not just for Halloween.  One mom mentioned saving all the handouts and fliers from the beginning of the school year and using the backs to make shapes and decorations.  I can see that this would be great for paper chains, paper lanterns, and other paper crafts.  

And, of course, it wouldn't be Halloween without the costumes:

• Thredup is a company that allows families to swap kids clothing and more.  
• Thrift stores can be a great way to find neat clothing to use for costumes
• Ideas for homemade costumes
• A cute picture of a Fair Trade Banana costume
• Recycled costumes
• And let's not forget the makeup and more makeup  

It turns out that October is also Fair Trade Month so there was a fair amount of information about that as well:

• Your Guide to a Fair Trade Halloween
• A 1 minute video on Fair Trade
• Global Exchange's Local Action Guide
• A list of Fair Trade Products
• 10 Ways To Celebrate Fair Trade Month

However you choose to celebrate the holidays make it fun, happy, and healthy.