Holiday

Being an Alaskan resident, trick or treating with the kids on Halloween and picking out costumes prior to the big event takes on one extra-chilly challenge: keeping kids warm. An average Halloween evening in south central Alaska is anywhere from -8 to 51 degrees Fahrenheit, and snow is a common candy companion. With some of the warmer lower-48 states now receiving some of our cold weather, it seemed an appropriate time to share my cold weather knowledge and offer tips from costume selection to candy collecting in an effort to keep you and your kids warm this Halloween.

Picking costumes for keeping kids warm on Halloween:

The first step to keeping kids warm on Halloween is to select a costume that either allows for extra clothing and weather protection or integrates such items into the costume. For example, say your child is a Jedi from Star Wars. This costume uses a robe that can either be thick and weather appropriate or warm clothing can be worn below it without ruining the costume. Cloaks and robes make a very simple way to make most costumes warmer, being appropriate for witches, vampires, knights, princesses, and much more.

Another trick is simply to buy or make your costume slightly larger than needed so layers of clothing or coats can be worn beneath. Layering is one of the best ways to stay warm in cold weather. Even costumes you wouldn’t think could be warm can be with layers. In example, say your child wants to be a ballerina. Normally, this costume would result in a frozen kid, but place thermal long johns below the costume, use thick stalkings rather than tights, and add some warm but very cool long gloves and you’re set.

You can even use shoe covers to make warm boots look costume appropriate. It’s also a good idea to keep costumes waterproof as much as possible. Placing some plastic bags between socks and shoes helps keep feet dry and warm and you can opt for a clear rain poncho if needed.

Keeping kids warm while trick or treating on Halloween:

Beyond dressing your kids (or kid) in warm costumes, you can also take steps to keep them warm during the actual trick or treating on Halloween. One commonly used method in Alaska is short-burst treating. This method entails trick or treat for a while, going somewhere out of the cold to warm up, and then continuing.

For example, you can park at the front of a street and have the kids go down one side, up the other, and then get back in the car. You can also do this using home as a base rather than a car. When kids arrive back at the warm base, so to speak, offer warm drinks such as cocoa or apple cider. Indoor apartment complexes can provide an alternative to this method as you can continue trick or treating and be inside a building rather than out in the cold.

Sending your kids out with hand warmers often used for cold weather fishing or hunting (that’s the section you’ll find them in at your local store) can also help warm cold little fingers. Remember to ask your child often if they are cold, if they are younger you may even consider just grabbing a hand and giving it a feel. You can always go home, warm up, and trick or treat some more later.

You may also enjoy:

Why is Halloween Celebrated?

Peanut Free Candy for Halloween

How Much Candy is Too Much for Kids?

Ah, Halloween, a holiday that brings fourth thoughts of adorable children in make-shift customs, apples, candy, full moons, and pumpkins carved with smiles, but Halloween has a darker and less jovial past. The Halloween we know today is an evolution forced by religious intolerance, only showing spider-leg slivers of it’s true origins. Which is not to say it’s not a celebration, but do you know what you’re really celebrating?

Stepping backwards, we find Halloween got her name sake during the spread of Christianity in 835 AD. A pope named Boniface the IV sought to replace the original Celtic holiday, Samhain (sah-wen), with a more church-approved alternative, because he couldn’t stop the people from celebrating and honoring the Celtic Gods. He found his placebo in All Saints’ day, also known as all hallow’s day, a day to honor dead saints and martyrs. All Hallows being the day before Halloween transformed Samhain into All Hallow’s eve which later morphed into today’s Halloween.

What is Samhain?

Samhain was a holiday celebrated by the Celts, a tribe that occupied what we would know today as Ireland, France, and the UK around 2,000 years ago. The Celts were a superstitious people who associated the cold, dark winter of their home lands with death. Being that 2,000 years ago a harsh winter did certainly mean death, this wasn’t that far fetched. They believed that Halloween, which was the day before their new year and marked the onset of winter, was a time when the space between our world and the dead’s was thinnest. So thin, in fact, that the dead visited the earth devastating crops, causing illness, and doing all matter of evil deed. This, of course, was more than likely actually the winter frosts, but nobody was about to tell the Celts that.

Samhain wasn’t all dead and evil deeds though, the Celts also believed that thin veil between worlds allowed druids and priests to make more accurate predictions about their future. Predictions that brought hope to tribes when the cold climate had taken all else. They celebrated those fortunes for three days by lighting a massive bonfire to light the dead’s way back to their world, feasted, and made sacrifices to the Gods. All the fires of the tribes except the bonfires were extinguished during the feast, then villagers dressed as animals in elaborate customs so the dead couldn’t recognize them to possess their bodies. They even fed the dead, leaving plates of food as sustenance for them around the villages. In the morning,  hearths were re-lit with embers from the central bonfire. It was believed this fire would protect the home owner, and their new future, during the winter season.

What’s that got to do with getting candy?

Nothing. It’s possible the idea of giving children candy on Halloween evolved from the leaving of food for the dead and feasts of Samhain. It’s has a few other possible origins as well, however. One story is that Fairies, who during the time of weak walls between the worlds traveled freely in towns, would pose as beggars looking for hand outs from the feast. Those who were charitable were rewarded, while those who weren’t were “tricked.” Another story states that in England during the Halloween celebration children would go door to door collecting “soul cakes” and for every soul they collected they would say a prayer for the giver’s dead loved ones.

I don’t see pumpkin’s mentioned in all that?

Pumpkins were actually originally turnips, but have you ever tried to carve a turnip into a face? Turnips were carved in reaction to an Irish ghost story called “Stingy Jack.” Jack trapped the devil in a tree and made a deal only to let him down if he promised not to take his soul to hell when he died. Well, Jack died and heaven wouldn’t have him, but the devil kept is word and turned Jack away from hell as well giving him nothing more than an ember of hell’s fires to find his way. Jack wandered the earth forever placing his ember in a carved turnip to create a lantern. The ancient Celts also placed the embers they used to light their hearth’s from the central fires into carved turnips, this is perhaps where old Jack got the idea. The Scot’s and Irish who brought the tradition to America believed they warded off evil spirits and honored the dead, but that pumpkins were easier to deal with and more plentiful.

So there you have it an answer to why is Halloween celebrated. Halloween is not a day for candy, but a day for the dead and honoring them. A feast, a fire, and family are more appropriate for the occasion, (No one said treats had no place in a feast) and let’s just leave the pumpkin’s to Jack.

Now that you are no longer wondering why is Halloween celebrated you may also enjoy:

Peanut Free Candy for Halloween

Candy for Kids: How Much Is Too Much?

 

 

 

I’ve always loved Halloween and everything about it, especially the candy, but as I found myself on the mom-side of the Halloween candy bag with a child allergic to peanuts I was frightened. A brief stroll down the candy aisle reveals a good 90 percent of all Halloween candy contains peanuts or was manufactured on equipment with peanuts.

What’s that mean for parents with children allergic to peanuts? Not just checking their kids Halloween candy bag for the razors and opened packages of the common parents’ fears, but for peanuts of any kind. It also means taking away a great deal of your child’s candy to avoid him or her having a possibly deadly allergic reaction. To me, it seems the fairest way to deal with this peanut situation on Halloween would be to replace the candies with peanuts with peanut free candy. Go ahead, let the kid trick-or-treat, raid their candy bag for peanut containing candies and replace them with allergy-safe peanut free candy alternatives.

So, for the parents of children with peanut allergies this Halloween I offer up this convenient list of peanut free candy for both checking and re-filling your child’s Halloween candy bag:

Anything made by Haribo including Gummi Candies

Skittles of all flavors and varieties

Mike and Ikes of all flavors

Trader Joe’s milk chocolate and semisweet chocolate chips

Altoids Mints, of all varieties minus chocolate

Hershey (plain milk chocolate) chocolate bars and Krackle bars, personal size only

Hershey (plain milk chocolate) chocolate Kisses of regular size only

Hershey Milk Duds, Kissables, Rolos (not mini) and classic Caramels

Wonka’s Nerds, Nerds Rope, Bottle Caps, Runts, Gob stoppers, Shock tarts, Pixy Stix, Tart n Tiny, Fun Dip, and Flavor Flippers (not all Wonka is peanut free candy but a lot is!)

Laffy Taffy of pretty much all brands

Cell’s milk or dark chocolate covered cherries

Super Bubble bubble gum by Farley’s and Sathers

Dubble Bubble Gum

Anything made by Tootsie including Tooties Pops & Tootsie Rolls

Junior Mints

Andes Mints

Lifesaver Gummies

Smarties

Sour Patch Kids of all varieties

Whoppers (excluding the new peanut butter flavor)

Sweet Tarts

Dum Dum lollipops

SunMaid chocolate-covered raisins

Ring Pops candy rings by The Topps Co.

Push Pops by The Topps Co.

Bottle Caps

Pop Rocks

Now and Laters

Caramel Apple pops

Zours

Hot Tamales

Red Vines

Trolli gummi worms sour and regular, and racecars

Jolly Rancher hard candy, lollipops and gummi candy

York Peppermint Patties

Twizzlers

Starburst fruit chew, lollipops and jelly beans

All variety of Dots

Sugar Daddy pops and Babies

Sixlets

Starburst fruit chews and lollipops of all varieties

Blow pops

Charleston Chews

Betty Crocker fruit roll-ups, fruit chews, fruit by the foot and gushers

Marsh Mellows of any brand (unless they are peanut flavored of course.)

Rice Crispy original

Candy Corns

The majority of non-peanut flavored hard candies

This is not an all inclusive list of peanut free candy, I just tried to list what is readily available at most grocery stores in most areas, when in doubt flip it over and check those ingredients. Many mini-candies or “fun sized” candies we see at Halloween don’t have ingredients listed because the size of the packages. You can always do a Google search and the candy company’s website will usually have an ingredient list, or if nothing else check next time you are the grocery store.

Remember that even peanut free candy that is manufactured on equipment with peanuts shouldn’t be given to a child with peanut allergies such as plain m&m’s.

I hope this has helped you and your child with a peanut allergy to have a happy and emergency room trip free Halloween.