What does a sugarfree Halloween look like?

Essentially, our is a celebration of family and harvest, like Thanksgiving, but lighter and more playful. Last year we chose our favorite treats, baked and prepared them together, and decorated together. The prep was as fun as the actual event--which was my favorite Halloween yet! Here in the South, we wait until Halloween day to carve the jack-o-lantern, keep him in the fridge when not in use, and steam, purée, and freeze him the next day. My daughter named him Jack, so every soup and sauce he went in was a grateful memorial service. We had our traditional chili and breadsticks dinner and went trick-or-treating! Yes, candy and all! We consider it an open house all our friends and neighbors are giving and go visiting! Later we packed the candy up and donated it. We used to do a "switch witch" or payment option, and that was good for a while, but now we just find a cause. We

are all getting our favorite treats anyway. We usually send it to a foreign country, for some reason that is very satisfying. Some friends had things like chips, stickers, and play dough. Then we returned to our lovely clean and decorated home, light candles, and enjoy our healthy treats to jazz lightly playing in the background.

We always do sesame honey treats. This year we will add chocolate PB Cups and possibly Madi's Brownies. Last year we spent several days experimenting with root beer, seeping dried herbs and infusing sweet elixirs into sparkling water. I was never very satisfied with the results and I finally had to come to grips with the fact that I never liked root beer much even when I did eat sugar, so why would I suddenly love it now? This year I just bought apple cider. Easy! We had apples with date caramels and a veggie tray with homemade ranch dressing. I can't remember what other small items we had. It was so peaceful and fun, though. A great day of family and friends, and the kids didn't even notice they were not eating the candy they were given.

I didn't mention the small accident we had while we were getting our costumes on. I was doing a little princess's hair when I heard a loud noise in the other room. I came into what looked like a murder scene, complete with a pool of blood and bloody handprints, though thankfully no corpse. It looked worse than it was, as head wounds do bleed a lot. I still don't know how he managed it. He has a significant scar on the back of his head, but it didn't slow him down a bit! Our own homemade Halloween scene! After the bleeding slowed down, it could only go uphill from there, right? I was so grateful the evening had a happy ending!