This post is sponsored by Crest. All opinions, experiences and stories are 100% my own.
Sometimes as parents, I feel like we overthink things. It gets worse during the holidays when creativity is involved – especially with me! My husband is the creative head in our family, and I pretty much follow his lead and participate. But I’d rather be having fun and enjoying the fruits of my labor – and by fruits of my labor, I mean trick-or-treating on Halloween.
You’re reading this because you want to know how to have fun with your family without the stress and consuming less candy. Am I right??? I’m sharing my not-so-secret secrets with you that I hope you find helpful!
My first secret is that I don’t overthink my own personal Halloween costume. Eh, I’m not gonna lie, I’m a pretty boring costume wearer. But for the fifth year in a row, I have managed to wear this same flower crown and pass it off as a different type of costume every year. One year this costume was a flower, the next year I passed it off as a fairy (and added a wand), the third year I was a hippie (I wore my hair straight, threw on a pair of sunglasses and knee-high leather white boots), the fourth year I told everyone I was a plant (I carried around a plant potter *woooo*), and this year’s costume…wait for it, wait for it: Mother Nature! Ta-da! You see what I did there? I turned this simple and classic flower crown into 5 different costumes!
1. Flower
2. Fairy
3. Hippie
4. Plant
5. Mother Nature
As a busy mom, can you blame me for putting more energy into my kid’s costumes, safety and health than my own *bland* costume? And look, no stress! By using items I already have and reusing costume props, I was able to create my own DIY costume with little to no effort!
And speaking of bland — how bland would life be without REAL candy for Halloween?! I’m sure you’ve seen the YouTube videos floating around of parents tricking their children into thinking they ate all of their candy. But what if you tricked your kids into thinking they were only eating healthy treats this Halloween season? How do you think they’d react if they found out that there are only going to be healthy snacks and NO. MORE. CANDY. Do you think they’d take that well? Probably not! And that’s exactly what Crest did as a prank in this hilarious Crest Halloween video!
I loved watching the children’s reactions to the healthy alternative treats – 100% raw, genuine, transparent and honest reactions. Watch it until the end and see what happens next (it’s only one minute long) – it was a completely expected response that had me laughing out loud!
I would be devastated too, if candy was taken away for Halloween, and I’m an adult! I have a major sweet tooth – my cravings for sweets are extreme to the point of having candies and chocolates taken away or completely eliminated from my peripheral view (with the exception of keto-friendly 85% Cacao Dark Chocolate, of course). I do think eating Halloween candy is fine in moderation, though.
My other not-so-secret secret to get my kids to consume less candy from trick-or-treating is to monitor like crazy and set expectations.
Every year my husband and I go through all of the candy to inspect it and make sure it’s safe for consumption. Then we let each of our kid choose five pieces they’ll eat that evening. The rest gets locked up and they each get 5-6 pieces of candy during the weekends until all their candy runs out. Candy lasts for MONTHS, allows them to consume in moderation, and satisfies their sugar cravings without going overboard. Our kids have become so accustomed to our way of doing post trick-or-treating that we’ve made it a tradition at the Teh’s! Side note: a recent survey from Crest also shows that 86% of parents eat candy given to their child while trick-or-treating. Whaaaaaaat???! Okay, guilty as charged, their candy probably would have lasted longer if we didn’t help them eat it all.
All kidding aside, I also learned from a recent Crest survey that 70% of parents have a stricter tooth brushing routine on Halloween. And I’d have to agree that I fall into that 70% – I feel like Halloween is a trigger point to remind parents that there is A LOT of sugar being consumed and that we should make sure the kids (and us as parents) are cognizant of dental care all the time. Although candy consumed in moderation is okay, we cannot deny the fact that sugar is bad for our teeth.
Here are other results from a recent parent survey conducted by Crest:
40% of parents enjoy Halloween more as an adult than as a kid
44% of parents eat more candy than their kid
73% of parents buy extra candy to binge on
I’m a huge advocate for oral health care, and we make sure our teeth are in tip-top shape! As a kid growing up, I wasn’t taught proper oral hygiene and had several cavities — like three-fourths of my teeth had fillings from cavities! My dentist guided me and explained that sugar was the biggest culprit to my cavities, and my dentist was right (he is a dentist, of course)! I was aware of dental hygiene and oral care as young as the age of eight, and I’m proud to have taken really good care of my teeth for the last (almost) three decades.
Crest has been a trusted brand in our home to help keep my family’s teeth and gums clean and healthy for many generations (from my parents, to me, and now to my own children). Crest carries a variety of oral hygiene products available and accessible for our entire family — from Crest Pro-Health for my husband and I; to Kid’s Crest Cavity Protection Sparkle Fun Toothpaste for the kids. What’s your favorite Crest product? Be sure to share it in the comments and bookmark this post; you’re going to want to reference back to it on Halloween day!
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