Finding Neverland this Halloween

“Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning.”

If you didn’t already know, I love going ALL out for events.

Shocker, I know.

Surprisingly enough, I dress up for Halloween more as an adult than I ever did as a kid. Although a lack of costume never kept me from trick-or-treating (it rains a lot where I grew up so a coat is all people would see anyways). 😉

Ever since our little family’s first Halloween when we all dressed up as circus performers, we have had fun coming up with a different group theme each year. Neverland and Peter Pan were on the docket this year.

“Trunk or Treat”

I had BIG plans for our car’s trunk at our church’s annual Trunk or Treat. Large pieces of cardboard shaped as a boat complete with a mast with flowing sails…

But schedules overlapped and we throught we would have to cut that activity out of our calendar.

The day before the party, our other plans fell through so we were able to attend after all. A few minutes before we needed to leave, I hurriedly gathered a few odds and ends around my house that might give the trunk the appearance of a pirate’s cave. To make the trunk complete, “Yo Ho A Pirate’s Life for Me” was playing in the background that I had pulled up on Youtube.

Captain Hook was a little daunting for a few of the younger children. Our friend’s little girl wouldn’t step near him even for candy. Poor thing!

Originally we planned to have Tennessee dress up as Captain Hook and my husband as Mr. Smee. Either one would have made an awesome Captain Hook. But we decided that Tennessee would make a cuter Mr. Smee and he has the belly to pull it off. 😉

What to do with ALL that Candy?

Mr. Smee and Peter Pan made bank with their candy booty. In years past, we have instituted a heavy “parent tax” the day after Halloween. We would let them have their share of candy the night of Halloween but by the next day the majority of their candy would be out of their sight. Since Boston is getting older and wouldn’t forget about his candy (or part with it) so easily, I wanted to try a different approach which we found to be quite effective.

A week or so before Halloween, I asked my boys if they would like to pick out an “eye” car (what they call the toy cars from the Disney movie “Cars”). I said that they could have the car if they each gave us the candy they would be getting during Halloween this year.

As best as I could, I explained that instead of purchasing two bags of Halloween candy this year, we would purchase one. With the extra money we would have spent on candy, we would instead buy them each a car of their choosing if they in exchange would give their candy (give or take a few pieces) to the trick-or-treaters.

They both agreed.

Halloween night two children eagerly traded in their load of candy for their new Lightening Mcqueen car.

SUCCESS!!!!

I definitely will be doing this candy swap business again next year!

We did let them have at it for a little while but thankfully they were too enthralled with the quantity that they only had a few pieces each. 🙂

Hope you all had a safe and fun Halloween!