What To Do with All the Candy?

After Halloween, there is a big question floating in the air.

Other than rotting teeth and giving all children a sugar high, nothing good could can come from all this sugar.

Or can it?
Here are a few character education ideas:  Tithe it.  Create a Kindness Jar.  Send it to soldiers overseas.  Freeze it for later use.  Operation Christmas Child.

Let’s begin with the idea of tithing.

Gather your children around a bowl of the collected Halloween candy. Discuss how God asks us to give Him the first 10% of what we are given. God made everything and everything that we have has been given to us by God. Because God has given us so much, we want to give back to Him. By giving back to God, we show God that we love Him and are thankful for what He has given us.

Because we want to give to God first, have each child count their Halloween candy and put the first piece of every ten aside.

Discuss ways that your child can give the candy “back to God.” It may be to give the candy to someone who was unable to trick-or-treat due to sickness or family emergency. Call a local shelter and see if your children can take the candy to children there. I have even heard of churches who have a “Candy Tithe” the Sunday after Halloween.  A friend helps her children sort the meltable candy out and send the rest of it in their Operation Christmas Child shoebox.      

Here are two verses to read from the Bible about giving:

Act 20:35  “In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

2 Cor 9:7  “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

Information for other ideas can be found on the ABCJesusLovesMe website Halloween page. 

What do you do with all of the Halloween candy collected?