Halloween is right around the corner – which means it’s time for fun costumes and lots, lots of candy. I know how you feel, you want your kids to have fun in this tradition but you don’t want them eating all that candy!
But there is a way to keep the door to door trick-or-treating tradition, without eating and entire bag of candy!
Enter the Switch Witch.
I first heard about her when my oldest was a toddler. We have been doing this tradition ever since! My kids love it and it allows them to experience Halloween, trick-or-treating, eating a few candies and making good choices.
What is the Switch Witch?
The Switch Witch is a witch that comes on Halloween night, after you’ve gone to sleep, and takes all the candy you leave for her. In exchange for all the candy she will leave an AMAZING toy for you.
She’s like the Tooth Fairy’s sister, except she leaves toys instead of money. You can customize the story of the Switch Witch according to your preference but make sure you tell your children about the Switch Witch before you go trick or treating. Ideally you want to start you start telling your kids the story a few weeks in advance, so they get used to the new tradition.
Be creative – come up with a fun elaborate story for your kids. Make it your tradition!
On the weeks prior to Halloween, you can ask your children what they would like from the Switch Witch. This way you’ll have an idea of what toy to get. After all, you want to give them something they will love more than candy.
Once your kids get back from trick-or-treating, have them pick out their favorite candy and leave the rest out for the Switch Witch. Remind them that the more candy they give away, the better the gift they will get.
You can also set a number of candy pieces they can keep. You can make this tradition your own – in our home my girls get candy on Halloween night and get to save some for another day. They end up giving most of it away to the Switch Witch.
Leave the candy on a special place at home, near a window or make a witchy nook. We leave our candy inside the Halloween buckets, near a window so the Switch Witch can see the candy.
Once your children go to sleep, switch the candy for the toy.
Make sure you hide well the candy so your children don’t find it or even better, give it away. Here are some places where you can donate the candy to: Treats for Troops, Operation Gratitude, Operation Shoebox or The Halloween Candy Buy Back Program.
I love the Switch Witch because my children give away voluntary their candy and it’s helping them understand to make healthier food choices. And let’s face it – getting a new toy is pretty fun!
Switch Witch books:
There are two books I found that tell the story of the Switch Witch. I haven’t gotten them since we made it our own tradition but they have great reviews and it’s a simpler way to introduce this Halloween tradition:
Free template letter:
To make things easier I made a template of a letter for the Switch Witch. We print this out, either sign it or write our own message and leave it next to the candy so the Switch Witch knows what to do.
You’re more than welcome to use our templates! To download, click on the image of the template you want to download:
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