How do you dole out the Halloween candy?

I give 'em a handful.

We never get too many kids anyway and I’m not going to eat the leftover candy, so I’m pretty generous. If I get the feeling a kid or a group is last of the night, I just give them the rest, which is usually quite a lot (makes their day, or night that is, I’m sure).

We’re pretty stingy out of self-defense, living in one of the handful of walkable neighborhoods in three counties. On a typical year we buy for 350-400 kids and run out by 7. Last year we were both kind of over it and wanted to get gone to some neighborhood parties, so we only bought about 200-250 kids worth, and even with the crazy low turnout due to weather, we lasted less than an hour.

Just one, but we give out regular-sized candy bars so the kids are usually pretty happy with that.

A handful each at home, one piece each in my classroom.

I try to be generous, and then some.

A few each but I’m trying not to run out and balance ‘good’ candy against cost.

You want a handful from me, I’m going to need to resort to buying the weird stale generic candy that’s in a 300 pc bag for $10.

Normally a couple pieces. We live next door to a house that runs a haunted house on Halloween, so we always go through many bags.

Last night with the rain, I gave out a handful to each kid.

I used to give out lots of halloween candy and I enjoyed the kids and the costumes but Mojo is afraid of costumes so now we leave the lights off and spend the evening in the basement with a whimpering puppy in my lap if I didn’t get down there before the first kid.

This year I was good and I got to spend the night with a happy dog instead but still in my lap. It would be a lot more cute if he wasn’t 80lbs.

We had a very unusual turnout this year. In every previous year I’ve given 2-3 pieces to each kid and had plenty of leftovers for me. The first dozen kids got 2 “fun sized” pieces. Then, after I saw a car pull up to drop off a new batch, I started giving one piece each. By 7:30 I’d run out of candy and had to turn the light off. First year that has ever happened.

I held out the bowl and said, “Take three”. You can learn a lot about your neighbors by observing how they do this. Most of them passed the “honest, orderly test.” :slight_smile:

We usually have like two kids and they’re always really little kids. So I offer the bowl and they timidly take one piece. Sometimes I say: take two, and they do. None of them are greedy but then I don’t get any teen-agers.

Our town now heartily disencourages individual trick or treating and has a town wide party - which I think is smart for a tiny very rural spot.

Back when we did theoretically do trick or treating here, we bought little toys and stuff from this catalog place, and added a nice full sized hershey bar and bagged them all up inhalloween bags. One bag to a kid.

I live on a block full of very elderly Europeans who built the neighbourhood when they came out to Australia after WWII who don’t participate (they try though, I see some odd things from back of pantries in the bags - dry crackers, canned foods etc.) so I try to make a fuss - the kids don’t know it isn’t done here, they were raised on US TV and see the shops trying hard to sell us the custom. I decorated and handed out a good brand fun size chocolate bar, a caramello koala and a little bag of choc chip cookies to each little monster that wandered by. We have lived here 8 years and got our first costumed kid 2 years ago, 4 last year and about 12 this year so it isn’t a very big deal to hand out the good stuff. The kid who first came with mum and then raced home to convince her older sisters to costume up and bring her back got an extra caramello koala for moxy :smiley:

I had to vote “it varies” because it all depends on what the density of trick-or-treaters is. Last night, we started out just after dark with a gigantic group (from another neighborhood, which I’m fine with), so we were parceling the candy out a few pieces at a time, thinking it would be a big night. As the flood dwindled to a trickle, the kids got larger and larger handsful of candy, and if anyone had come out after 8:30, he’d have gotten half a bowl.

My daughter took a huge bag of candy to her D&D group tonight, and whatever she brings back will go to school with me for bribes (more for co-workers than kids). Anyone want a little bag of Skittles? It’s fun-sized!