A Guide To Leftover Candy

And that would be the closet.

Slowly, you reach out, trying your best to suppress your cries of terror and fear. Can you go on with it? What if it’s more horrible than you could ever imagine, more sinister than what your feeble mind could ever picture? What if the scenes going through your head at this very moment just scratch upon the surface of what is to come? But it’s too late to think about that now, you realize, as your hand falls upon the cold metal of the doorknob. Lightning strikes once more, making the doorknob glow, as if it is taunting you, beckoning you, forcing you to turn it and reveal what lies behind it.

The doorknob turns more easily than you expected. You take a second to breathe, to try and calm yourself down before what is about to come before you.

Finally, you open the door. There it is, more wicked than you could have imagined. Your eye twitches and you shriek in horror. Right in the middle of the door, they tower above you, looking down on you in such horrible temptation! They are none other than...

...those horrible mountains of leftover candy!

I know what you’re thinking. You are currently resisting the immediate urge to crawl under your bed (if you are fortunate enough to have one) and cower in fear for a few days, but you’ve got to trust me. This article was specifically designed to help you overcome this disastrous event that occurs a few weeks after Halloween is over. So, do not fear, my bloated readers! You will survive this year!

What’s Wrong With Leftover Candy?

If you’re asking this question, you’ve either been driven insane by evil mountains of week-old candy, or you somehow manage to finish all of your Halloween candy in time.

Let me explain. Many young Neopians go out on Halloween night in search of tasty sweets, filling up their jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treat bags with relative ease. By the time the end of the night comes, Neopian families can have up to four (or in the case of cousins, more) full bags of candy, just waiting to be unwrapped and eaten with gusto.

However, sometimes people don’t like to eat all of their Halloween candy right away. They would rather eat it slowly, just steadily chowing down on small snacks. Soon, after a couple of weeks, the mountain of leftover Halloween candy seems higher than it was before, and no one can bear to throw all of the luscious treats away. So they quickly pick up the pace, but that only causes bloating and indigestion.

More than 2/3 of all Neopians have leftover candy every year, and more than 2/3 of those 2/3 don’t ever finish it. And more than 2/3 of the 2/3 of the first 2/3 don’t know what to do with the leftover leftover candy. So, what is the answer to this problem that has been perplexing Neopians for years?

The Options

Luckily, I have done some extensive research and have discovered three successful ways to rid yourself of the monstrous mounds of candy waiting in your pantry or basement. People normally develop preferences, so try all three and see which one works for you. Personally, I do all three every year (you can choose two or three of these approaches and still rid yourself of a sufficient amount of delectable sweets), but that’s just me.

I just have to warn you. Sometimes, these approaches can backfire. If you feel that all three of these approaches are unsuccessfully fit for your lifestyle, feel free to find your own way to deal with all of those leftover treats. This is only a set of guidelines, and “guidelines” is a very different term than “you have to do this to your leftover candy or you will have a gigantic stomach bulge for the rest of your life.”

The Charity Approach

This is most likely the easiest and nicest way to give away your wasted Halloween candy. It is basically what it sounds like (if it wasn’t, I should think it would be a little confusing). The basic idea of this approach is, you take all of your candy and donate it to a source, such as the Money Tree. If you don’t have the convenience of living near the Money Tree, you can set up a stand or organization to donate candy to those who want more, or to those who aren’t exactly in the Halloween spirit, but still want some sweets of their own.

However, this approach does pose a few problems. First of all, getting the candy to all of those recipients can be very hard. If you don’t live near the Money Tree, going door to door and dropping candy off may not work, because those people could just throw the candy away. You have no idea who lives behind each door (and if you do, I would be very worried if I were you), and they could be some strange little Neopian who just loves to see candy flushed down the toilet or buried deep in the trash bin.

Organizations are also hard to run. If you think about it, many Neopians have a sweet tooth, and there’s a chance that, like the Soup Kitchen, your very own organization could have a mile-long line out the back of it. Because of this, you, or staff that you would hire (that’s right, it would cost a bit of money) would have to work 24 hours, 7 days a week. And for most normal Neopians, that’s not going to happen.

So, although this is the easiest and most giving approach, I would suggest using it only if you are near to the Money Tree (where candy sure can pile up a few weeks after Halloween), or if there’s an organization or charity close to you that’s considerate enough to take in all of your neglected treats.

The Festival Approach

This idea for ridding yourself of Halloween candy is by far the most complicated and risky of the three, but it can be the most fun and the most rewarding. If you do it right, then not only could you get rid of those savored sweets, but you could make others happy, and gain a profit.

This simple approach, which involves the psychology of the average Neopian, and an ingenious mind that is able to plan and manage money at the same time, involves creating a party or festival that includes games, rides, and other features that are sure to please the residents of your very town.

Of course, now you’re thinking that if you tried this, you’d be way over your head, but no one ever said that you had to do it alone. Rack up all of your friends who wish to cleanse themselves of Halloween treats and each make sure you’re all responsible for creating one activity for the other residents of your town to do. Make sure that candy is always involved. Maybe it could be the prizes for some of your games, what’s sold at the food court, and, you could always do my personal favorite, the annual candy-eating contest.

But there are still a few problems. If there are too few people at your festival, it could easily be a flop, and not only will you have spent Neopoints and/or time on this project, you’ll still have loads of candy on your backs. Make sure you advertise the festival enough so that at least people know about it. You never know how many people are going to show up, so it’s always a risk you take if you plan one of these events.

Also, if there are a lot of people near you who share your candy burden, not many of them are going to want to come to a festival revolving around Halloween candy. If necessary, hold your festival away from your town instead of near it. If you’re fortunate enough to live near a big city or town, it’s more likely that your festival will be a success rather than a failure.

The Christmas Approach

This one, I believe, is the most resourceful of all of the approaches. Like its name suggests, the approach has to do with Christmas, and I’m sure all of you thinkers out there have already figured out what this one is about. People do want to reuse and recycle, right? Well, if this isn’t reusing and recycling, I don’t know what to do with my leftover leftover candy.

In this simple plan, you take all of the Halloween candy you have left (this one normally works best if you have only a little left, or if you pull it off in conjunction with another approach) and give it to others as a Christmas gift. It doesn’t even have to be your main gift, considering you didn’t have to pay for it, and there will still be money to buy something else. Candy is perfect for putting in the stockings of loved ones, and can be used for fillers on mini-advent calendars you enjoy.

But, this approach may come off as slightly cold-hearted. If you think about it, someone may just want to get rid of your candy, and see Christmas as an easy way out. They obviously don’t care about you if they’re using your gift as an excuse to give away their Halloween candy. That is why I highly suggest that you get another gift (or gifts, if you’re up for it) to go along with the candy, or you put it in stockings or an advent calendar, because people are much smarter than other people think, and they will pick up on the fact that this is the Halloween candy that you don’t want anymore.

Also, try to avoid chocolate in this one, because, although chocolate is one of my favorite types of candies, by Christmas it will at least have partially melted, and no one wants melted chocolate. Imagine, if you will, a young Neopian looking through his stocking and pulling out a small pile of melted chocolate. That might actually scar him for life.

So What Have We Learned?

We have learned that leftover Halloween candy can be damaging to the average Neopian’s overall health and psyche, and that it’s best to be dealt with before it is too late. There are three ways that I have devised to get rid of that pesky leftover candy, but that doesn’t mean that they are the only three ways. If you have come up with another successful approach to ridding yourself of Halloween candy, please contact me!

We have also learned specifically about the three methods to giving away that persistent candy. There is the Charity Approach, which simply involves donating candy to a charity, or creating a charity of one’s own, to give other people the chance to chow down on your candy. There is the Festival Approach, which is just a big party that you and your friends hold in an attempt to give away candy and have some fun at the same time. Finally, there is the Christmas Approach, which involves using up your last leftover candy for some nifty Christmas presents directed at loved ones.

Now you see that leftover candy doesn’t have to be such a bad thing. So, have happy Halloweens to come, and don’t let those evil mountains of Halloween candy scare you any more.

Author’s Note: If you have any suggestions, complaints, or new ways to get rid of leftover Halloween candy, feel free to contact me. I’m open to critiquing, as always. Thanks for reading through this article, and I assure you, there’s more to come.