Growing Up D: Halloween

“In a snow enshrouded graveyard
Gripped by winter’s bitter chill,
Not a single soul is stirring,
All is silent, all is still
‘Till a distant bell tolls midnight,
And the spirits work their will.”

– by Jack Prelutsky
from The Dance of the Thirteen Skeletons, 1976
Today, on this most bubbling, bubbling, toiling and troubling of days, I want to share with you my insights and experiences of growing up D around this candy-centric, sugar-crazed holiday.  I’ve been asked how I dealt with Halloween when I was kid; how did I navigate my way though the onslaught of junk food and come out, unscathed, on the other side?  Ultimately, the answer comes down to my parents and their ability to teach their newly diagnosed daughter some semblance of Halloween responsibility.  Throughout grade school, my parents and I developed a collection of (what I have recently termed) “All Hallows’ Eve Coping Mechanisms” that I practiced and honed throughout my adolescent years…

1. It’s all about the costume. Instead of focusing on Halloween as a time to pig out on a pillowcase-sized pile of junk food, in my house, it was all about the costume and, each year, I put a lot of thought into my homemade attire. I was a witch. I was Red Riding Hood. I was Raggedy Ann. I was a gift-wrapped present (I wore a box wrapped in wall paper and had to sit on the carpet all day at school since I didn’t fit at my desk). I was a medieval maiden. And (one of my favourites) I was a green crayon.
2. Toss the gum (it was always rock hard anyway) but keep the Bazooka Joe comic folded within its wrapper. Zero carbs. Big laughs. By the time my later grade school years rolled around, I had quite the collection of tiny, glossy Bazooka Joe comics. I kept them in little stacks held together by paper clips.
3. Trade candy for chips. Chips may not be any healthier than candy but they do have one thing working for them: a far less pronounced postprandial blood sugar spike.  By the end of the night, each Halloween, my brother would have all the Skittles and I’d have every bag of Humpty Dumpty I could get my hands on.
4. Sell Halloween haul for profit. After tossing out all things gross (i.e. break-yer-teeth hard gum, see above), each of the remaining items was designated a monetary value. Full-sized chocolate bars went for a dollar while their miniature counterparts ran between $0.25 and $0.50. Rockets, individual caramels and hard candies went for closer to $0.10.  After organizing my loot into categorical piles, my parents would pick and choose what they liked, and I’d reap the rewards.  I’d stash my hard-earned cash in my money tube (No piggy bank for me.  Instead, I had a giant glass tube with a giant cork lid. Worked well. Still does.) where it would mingle with my weekly allowance.
5. Keep some chocolate for myself! Deprivation is not the name of the game.  Even though I have to bleed a little before I eat and read the nutrition information on junk food labels, I can eat sweet treats with the best of them and, throughout my childhood, I was always allowed to indulge in moderation.  One of the great things about Halloween candy is that the “fun-sized” portions usually contain between 10 and 15 grams of carbohydrate — that perfect “food exchange” amount.  In the weeks following Halloween, instead of getting a fruit cup or a Tupperware full of applesauce in my lunchbox, the “fruit” portion of my noontime meal always consisted of a miniature Kit Kat or a small box of Smarties.  And, let me tell you, it was always mmm, mmm, satisfying.

Double fistin' it at 18 months of age (8 years pre-diabetes).

…What about you? What are your Halloween tricks and traditions?