We asked, you answered: Here’s what Canadian parents do with leftover Halloween candy

A photograph of a handful of candy. (Pexels/Photo by Mikhail Nilov)

Leftover Halloween candy can strike fear in parents with young children, leaving them with kids who go through sugar rushes and expensive dentist visits.

CTVNews.ca asked readers how they repurpose all the excess sweet treats from the spooky season, and they responded with creative ways to revamp them.

Jennifer Blanchard from Kitchener, Ont. told CTVNews.ca that she froze her children’s Halloween candy stash to use during other events.

“Candy doesn’t expire when it’s frozen, and it’s a secret stash for birthday and sugar rushes. They’re great for the goodie bags,” Blanchard said.

“You can’t find small, little chocolate bars at Christmas time (during) January, February and March. It saves me money; that’s just a little hack of mine,” she added. “(Also), kids’ birthday parties when they’re younger are expensive, and you throw in a handful little chocolate bars, it saves money, it’s practical and you’re not wasting them.”

Blanchard used the candy to fill a pinata or loot bags, and sometimes she would send some along with their lunches, adding that she would also give out the leftover candy to people as a “thank you.”

“Give it to the mailman, give it to the Amazon driver, give it to school bus drivers,” Blanchard advised. “Just make up a little bag for them and say, ‘Here it is.’ It’s kind of giving back, just saying you appreciate the things they do, and it’s a little treat for them.”

One reader from Port Perry, Ont., Tracy Pastic, said her community advises families to save their leftover candy and use it to create a gingerbread village with their children.

According to Pastic, Bakersville Animated Gingerbread Village, which celebrates its 30^th anniversary this year,

It is a community project run by volunteers, where people can bring their versions of a gingerbread house to create a “magical” village, complete with an animated train, a snowboard hill, miniature skaters, lights, trees, figurines and artificial snow.

“It just looks like an enchanted village,” Pastic said. “A lot of people use their Halloween candy for chimneys on the houses. They use the candy corn; nobody ever likes that stuff. People use that for fences, which is kind of fun.”

Meanwhile, Food Banks Canada told CTVNews.ca that people looking to donate their Halloween candy accumulations can reach out to their local food banks and confirm if they are accepting it as a donation, which can vary depending on each bank.

Elesha Halbert, a mother of two from Temiskaming Shores, Ont. said that she had always been selective about the candy that her children were consuming from their Halloween haul, so that she could keep a check on their sugar intake.

“Anything I wasn’t interested in stashing away for myself as a treat, I’d take to work as a treat for my coworkers,” Halbert told CTVNews.ca. “I think it’s important to teach children to manage their candy intake. I hope that if I teach them moderation, rather than deprive them, they won’t go crazy on sweets later in life when they have the chance.”

When Halbert went trick-or-treating with her daughter this year, she told her mother that she had dessert for “months.”

“I feel like I’ve taught them slowly that just because you have a whole ton of candy, doesn’t mean you have to sit down and eat it all at once,” Halbert added.

Tahini Fortin, another mother of two from Lumby, B.C., sends the leftover treats to her husband’s office for his coworkers.

“I used to give away the extras on social media, but I’ve been off all platforms since last year,” Fortin told CTVNews.ca in an email. “I might blend some of the candies and chocolate into ice cream or crush a few up to rim mugs for hot chocolate this winter.”