As a kid, I was a total candy monster, always hiding something in my room and spending my pocket money on bulk gummy candies. What about Halloween? It was kind of like my Oscar (I was a theater kid too). I saw this as an opportunity to get some staple supplies that would get me through the long, cold winter. For me, trick-or-treating isn’t about how I dress up; It’s about what’s in my pillowcase bag when the short night is over.
Now I am a mother and my son Lou has food allergies. Particularly candy-inhibiting foods: peanuts, dairy, eggs, sesame seeds, cashews, and pistachios. He can eat most gummies (much to the relief of the gummy person in me), but most of the popular Halloween stuff—your peanut butter beans, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, even standard milk chocolate bars—are extremely Prohibited.
So what should a mother who likes candy do?
Lu just turned three last year. When we got home, he excitedly ate all the decent fruity treats in the bag, along with some extra gummy bears we bought as backup. I took a video of him saying, “I like candy,” with a wry smile on his face and a plastic fire hat on his head. I thought, that’s my son.
But as the holidays approach this year, I’m even more wary. We’ve got a few things covered; Lu’s look as Daniel Tiger has been confirmed, and we’re on the hunt for the perfect red knitted cardigan.
But the candy part – in my memory, the only part that matters – will still suck, for lack of a better word. Our plan was to do what we did last year, but with a few added layers of protection: First, talk to him beforehand about being careful and why he couldn’t eat anything unless mom and dad approved. Next up is some kind of magical realism strategy, like Switch Witch, which is a new tradition that seems to be very popular with other allergy moms in my Allergy Moms Facebook group. The third is to have backups ready for backup: not just extra gummy bears (there will be a lot of them), but extra little toys like stickers and temporary tattoos that can help calm the moment when a particular piece comes around of pain. (Here I have to give a shout out to the Teal Pumpkin Project, which aims to spread non-candy love far and wide to children with allergies. May it multiply.)
I think my last step will be the most important in the long run. I decided that we were going to be the Halloween house. Instead of fearing Halloween—the holiday does, after all, revolve around gifts that are deadly to us—we will embrace it.
We will be hanging glowing bat lanterns, carving pumpkins and deciding on costumes in July. We will be the first on the streets and the last to go home. At the end of the evening, we all sit on the kitchen floor and sort through this year’s harvest together, saying goodbye to unsafe items and filling our bellies with sanctioned sugar. We would all sleep late, refreshed, and wake up exhausted but happy, talking about what a great time we had.
For us, and all other food allergy families, Halloween really isn’t what it was when I was a kid: unbridled, candy-fueled, candy-led mayhem. But this year, and forever, I bet we can make it better.
Jana Pollack is a freelance writer, editor, and creative strategist with over a decade of experience in digital media. She previously worked at theSkimm and BuzzFeed, and has bylines in magazines including Romper, Insider, and Jenny Mag.
