Homesteading with Hyacynth: Halloween Homesteading

Welcome to Homesteading with Hyacynth! Homesteading with Hyacynth is a monthly look at ways to lead a healthy, greener, more sustainable life. My intent with Homesteading with Hyacynth is to offer genuine, practical experiences and humorous and helpful tips. Of course, I am not a medical professional so these are my tips and what worked for my family.

Halloween is lurking around the corner, and you could say, my boys, 6 and 4, are excited.

I mean, they have been planning their Halloween costumes for this year since November 1.

Of last year. And, no, I’m not joking.

So I’m trying really hard not to be a buzzkill because if there’s any holiday that makes a homesteading heart want to gallop wildly out of one’s chest { and straight into a lush orchard of beautiful, juicy apples or somewhere else serene}, it’s Halloween.

Because, honestly, even with following the 80/20 rule — 80 percent of what we eat is a whole food, and 20 percent falls into the “other” category — Halloween can easily blow that ratio out the water.

Perhaps you don’t follow an 80/20 rule or get spooked about the trans fats in the candy bars that go bump in the night but still find yourself a little frightened by the mention of Halloween?

Well, you’re not alone. I find it terrifying, too, when after gorging on too much sugar, my kids start running around the house like crazed sugar monsters, their heads nearly spinning off their shoulders, ala Linda Blaire.

So what’s a Homesteader or a parent who can only take so much real-life sugar-induced Poltergeist to do with Halloween?

Rest assured that there are options that don’t including handing out zucchini or pulling a drive-by squashing. Here’s how our whole-food loving family enjoyed Halloween without gorging on gobs of candy.

When it comes to handing out treats, we keep it simple but enjoyable and have handed out these treats:

• small boxes of raisins
• apples
• Annie’s individual packages of Graham Cracker Bunnies
• pencils
• stickers
• Lollipops

This year I was tempted to hand out cherry tomatoes because they keep coming out of the garden, but considering they burst pretty easily and my six-year-old wanted to crawl under a rock when I suggested it, we’re not.

Perhaps you’re doing your part to keep Halloween as healthy as possible, but the rest of the neighborhood is still handing out enough candy to choke a horse? Well, there are options for that, too.

• In the past, we’ve donated our candy to organizations {or to daddy’s office}
• We’ve paid the children for their entire bag of candy after they’ve picked out five treats they really wanted to keep. We’ve allowed them to buy a gift with the money they earned from trading in their candy.
• We use candy as currency. Example: oh, you want to go to the bounce house and bounce yourself into oblivion for a few hours? Let’s make a trade! You pay me 15 pieces of candy, and we’ll do that.
• We’ve used bribery. Example: You eat that whole plate of spinach and sprouts, and you can pick a piece of Halloween candy!

How do you keep Halloween a little bit healthier?

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