Halloween is the best holiday of the year! It’s the only when parents encourage their children to dress so they are unrecognizable, knock on strangers’ doors and night, and beg for candy. The history of Halloween dates back 2,000 years ago as the Celtic tradition celebrating the end of harvesting and the beginning of winter and their new year, November 1st. Over the course of two millenia, Halloween developed accordingly in Europe due to the Ancient Roman Empire, rise of Catholicism, and colonization which brought this autumn holiday to North America. Halloween morphed from a largely dark and secular holiday into a community-driven friendly one. Trick-or-Treating began in the late 19th century as Americans began to dress up and ask their neighbors for food and money. This was a tradition introduced by Irish and English immigrants.
Presently, Americans spend about $6 billion on Halloween, making it the second largest commercial holiday after Christmas. About $2.5 billion is spent on candy alone. With so many resources going to support Halloween, you want to make sure each dollar is well spent. So here are some of the best Halloween candies, divided into fruity and chocolate candies categories, that will ensure all of the little goblins and ghouls will keep ringing your doorbell.
Sugary
Fun Dip
The whole concept of Fun Dip is brilliant: a tool belt of sugar. It’s simple. It’s as much of an experience as it is a delicious hyper-activity inducing gem: you dip an edible chalk stick into sugar and lick it…for HOURS! So while you may be giving kids sugar, they’ll at least be quiet.
Starburst
Here’s the fun thing about these two little squares wrapped in one package: you never know what flavors you’re going to get. You tear open that outer yellow paper and have any combination of red, pink, orange, or yellow surprises inside, all of which are delicious. Moreover, you can save colorful wrappers to fold and link into an oddly beautiful paper chain. So these treats allow kids to be creative while noshing on the fruity, chewy candy.
Laffy Taffy
Laffy Taffy are just bigger Now and Laters wrapped in jokes. They are the consummate gift that keeps on giving. These squares need to fill in your candy bowl in the multitudes because they are delicious and promote education because kids are required to read on a piece of paper (not a screen) to get the entire bang for your buck. By adding Laffy Taffy as a Halloween staple, you’re actually doing a service for our youth. Who knows, maybe you’ll help the next Edith Wharton or Ernest Hemingway discover her/his calling through the power of hidden words.
Skittles
Taste the Rainbow! These beautiful and brights dots are so cheery which is a perfect balance for a dark Halloween night. The fun sized packets, that are typically bought for Halloween, even have a sufficient amount of candy in them to feel like you’ve gotten a real treat.
Sour Patch Kids
I have only met one person in my entire life that actually does not like the taste of anything sour. Personally, I love the way these candies make my cheeks pucker and always wished I could just get a packet of the sour sprinkles. The sourness makes your face contort, your eyes may even water, and you’ll probably even shudder a little – this is what makes Sour Patch Kids so fun to eat!
Nerds
These amorphous little dudes are also so fun to eat even though their taste is hard to pinpoint: they aren’t quite sweet nor are they sour; they are a little bit fruity but not like any real piece of fruit. Regardless, Nerds truly look like they came out of Willa Wonka’s whimsical mind. Try dumping an entire box into your mouth and see if you can actually chew them!
Chocolate
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
That black and orange package epitomizes Halloween. The perfect pairing of peanut butter and chocolate are usually the first to go out of my kids’ candy stashes. I’ve also heard kids inform other groups of trick-or-treaters which houses are handing them out! So if you don’t include Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups into your trick-or-treat repertoire, you might as well turn the lights off and pretend you aren’t even home.
Snickers
The only thing better than getting Halloween Snickers is getting a full-sized Snickers bar on Halloween. If you don’t want to shell out the dough to buy the big bars then NOT eat them yourself, at least purchase the fun-sized bars and not those dinky little squares. Those minis are as useless and annoying as mosquitoes. The combination of peanuts, caramel, chocolate, and nougat is undeniably classic. If you want kids to herald you as that awesome house on Halloween, load the bowl full of Snickers bars.
M&M’s
These delicious chocolate discs should be the euphemism for candy much like how the colloquial use of “Coke” is used to mean all varieties of soda. They are so timeless that when I hear “candy”, I immediately think of them. Without M&Ms, no Halloween candy stockpile is complete.
Junior Mints
Mint is my favorite flavoring! It makes your mouth feel clean and wholesome like you’re doing it a favor by eating candy. I mean, Junior Mints should be thanking YOU. Firm, bittersweet chocolate encases a molten dollop of bright white sugary mint to create a perfect little treat. The juxtaposition of dark and light; bitter and sweet; and hard and soft may, in theory, seem off-putting. Once you pop it into your mouth, however, you feel like you never have to go to the dentist again. This is another reason why kids love them – they can fool us tired parents that they actually did brush their teeth because their breath smells wonderful.
Milky Way
The stars must have aligned when the Mars confectionary company that led to the production of the Milky Way bar. Used to think it was just a Snickers bar without the peanuts but it is oh so much more! The three ingredients: caramel, malt nougat, and milk chocolate balance each other entirely. If you pull apart the candy bar, the perfectly textured caramel stretches between the divided pieces. It’s sticky and sweet and a delight for the little goblins!
Kit Kat
Kit Kats are the most democratic of all candies. You have one candy that is easily shareable by breaking it into equal parts like perforated paper. What better way to start a friendship than by offering someone candy? So go ahead, break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar!
There are few ways you can ruin Halloween but a variety of ways you can enhance the trick-or-treater’s experience one of which is what kind of candy you offer. If you want kids to refer to you as “that house with the good candy”, grab some of the aforementioned treats and you will reign those spooky streets!
