A Family Affair

When Candy Zombies Attack

How to take on the most frightening part of Halloween.

I’m not afraid of Halloween. I don’t fear haunted houses, witches or ghouls. Ghosts, skeletons, severed hands, tombstones – bring them on. I’m not afraid of even genuinely scary stuff, such as paying $69.95 for a sparkly fairy princess outfit (crown and wings extra) that will be too small in six months. What frightens me about Halloween is the CANDY. Bags of chocolate, bowls of candy corn and handfuls of gummy worms may be bliss for kids, but they are enough to give most parents nutritional nightmares. Think about it. The average plastic Jack-o-Lantern holds about three pounds of candy – roughly 250 pieces -- for a whopping 9,000 calories. If your family has two or three industrious trick-or-treaters, they could fill a standard-sized …

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Local Service Group Collects 10,000 Pounds of Halloween Candy for Troops

The Treats 4 Troops project collected more candy this year than in the past thanks to local participants.

A local service group is putting leftover Halloween snacks to good use after collecting about 10,000 pounds of candy to benefit the Treats 4 Troops project. Last week, Bethesda-based service group MoverMoms organized a candy drive, known as Treats 4 Troops, for U.S. servicemen and women and had an overwhelming response from the area. This year, MoverMoms collected about 2,500 pound more than the drive in 2009, said Rebecca Kahlenberg, co-founder of MoverMoms. "This year I think we got more organized and got the word out a little earlier," Kahlenberg said. "This year it really exploded as a corporate good citizenship effort and we got donations from more people and more places." Kahlenberg said that candy donations came from places like …

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A Family Affair

Dealing with Halloween's Aftermath

Now that the trick-or-treating is over for another year, it's time to face the really scary experience of the holiday: the following day.

So, it's the morning after Halloween, aka, the Most Hideous Morning of the Year. And oh, is it ugly. The sticky candy wrappers left behind in the hallway. The "itchy" wig forgotten on the couch. The smell of slightly scorched pumpkins. The faux spider webs dangling unhappily from the bushes. You pour yourself a second cup of coffee and fight the urge to sneak an Almond Joy. In spite of the mess, it's somehow peaceful. And then the children stagger downstairs. In case there is any doubt, let me assure you that children crashing from the sugar high and the wild spirits of the night before are a much more frightening sight than any of the ghouls and goblins that decorate the houses and lawns of the neighborhood. They are cranky, tired, and …

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