Uses for leftover Halloween candy

We usually have a ton of leftover candy in our house. That’s because as much as Wood Sprite and Indy love to go trick-or-treating, they don’t love every kind of candy out there. In fact, Wood Sprite only likes a few types of candy: plain old chocolate (with a few variations, like M&Ms), Twizzlers and Smarties. She will pretty much snub her nose at anything else. Indy and I usually pick through her loot and select a few pieces, and then we have a bunch left over.

What do you do with your leftover candy? Post your ideas in the comments. If you need ideas, here’s what we do with ours…

1. Candy Buy Back

We go to the dentist and she buys our candy at $1 per half pound, I think. Then she ships it overseas to our troops so they get candy and the kids get something out of it, too. They also do fun games and activities during the buy back.

2. Gingerbread houses

We set aside some really brightly-colored candy (especially Nerds, Gobstoppers, etc.) to make gingerbread houses with them. We just build houses with graham crackers and white icing around small boxes, then paint on a bunch of icing and stick our candy in it to “decorate” our houses. Voila, easy gingerbread houses!

3. Treat Bags

It’s also nice to make treat bags to give out to local service people. We gave some to the fire department one year and they were really grateful for all of the candy!

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia