Is there any more universal truth than, “Kids love candy”? I don’t think there is. I mean, there are those very few children who have never had candy or never developed a sweet tooth, but I’m pretty sure that those kids are space aliens and space aliens are statistically irrelevant. All kids love candy in some form or another. Chewy, chocolaty, nutty, whatever as long as it’s sweet. They focus on it, think about it, dream about it (vision of sugarplums, anyone?), and develop elaborate schemes to acquire it. If left unsupervised with large amounts of candy, some children will eat until their eyes roll back into their heads and lay on the floor twitching in a sugar-induced state of bliss.
So I hear.
I hate the whole idea. Sure, I like the taste of candy. I was a kid once, but now I am the father of five candy-loving kids and as such, I hate it on a very basic level. I loathe its very existence. The candy flow in our house never seems to stop. The stuff flows in for every birthday, every event and every holiday, even minor ones. Have you ever seen little chocolate trees for Arbor Day? You’d think that eating trees would go against the very idea of Arbor Day.
I’ve seen candy birthday cakes, candy hearts, candy bunnies, candy witches and pumpkins, candy turkeys and, Lord help me, candy baby-Jesus-in-a-manger and who’s going to eat THAT? One thing I have not seen is candy Matzo and that’s a product that would definitely be improved by the addition.
The candy season never actually ends and its high point is Halloween, of course, an event that is so associated with trick-or-treating now that the Pagans have pretty much just given up and now celebrate various solstices and equinoxes instead. Halloween is coming up very soon, so if you happen past my house and see some kids still in their costumes passed out and twitching on my front lawn, it just means they dug into their stashes early. Don’t worry about them.
They should be fine by Thanksgiving.