Healthy Halloween Treats for Trick-or-Treating

I will admit…I’m not much of a Halloween person. I don’t really like dressing up, I don’t like showering kids with sugary treats, and I’m not big on Halloween decorations, besides pumpkins. Although I do LOVE dressing up my son and wish I could do it more often. His first Halloween he was the CUTEST KOALA BEAR IN THE WORLD. I’m not biased at all. 

Last year we experienced our first Trunk or Treat with my son’s pre-school. When I got the email about the event, I kind of panicked. These teachers and other moms knew I was in graduate school for Nutrition…surely I couldn’t go handing out SUGAR to their sweet little children. And if I did, they’d be like, “WHY IS THE HEALTHY LADY GIVING OUT CANDY?!” Am I right?? 

So a google search for healthy Halloween treats told me I could hand out raisins or pretzels instead. I know these kids are only 2 years old but I would definitely forever be labeled the uncool mom if I gave out raisins on Halloween. Any other day, a box of raisins is totally cool. But on Halloween?? Um, no thank you. (Unless the raisins are covered in chocolate, which would be totally acceptable to me. My husband, however, still says two thumbs down.)

No Sugar Halloween Treats

My solution? Forget about the sweet stuff and give them a totally cool non-food treat instead. Last year I gave out cute fruit face stickers and farm animal face stickers. Hopefully no one thought I was making a statement against Halloween candy with the fruit stickers, ha! I just cut the rolls of stickers up so each kid would get a sheet with a few stickers.

This year, I’m taking a similar approach. I have a big bag of leftover party favors with paper airplanes, stamps, bendy figurine things (I don’t know how else to describe these!), bouncy balls, and foam animal stickers. I’ll let the little ones pick out 2 or 3 items.

Even though I plan to give out non-food treats, I am not totally against Halloween candy. I’m not going to take it all away from my son and tell him he can’t have any. I don’t want him to totally miss out on the experience. I prefer not to give it out myself to toddlers, none of them is going to complain that I didn’t give them candy!

Tell me– do you give out candy at Halloween?

What’s your opinion on non-food or healthy Halloween treats?