Halloween Nightmare: The Worst Trick or Treat Items to Get Instead of Candy

You know those candies that your grandparents have sitting in a dish on the side table. Yeah, those impossibly hard ones that no one can actually bite into? Literally no one has ever asked for more of those. Leave them on the side table where they belong.

You know there’s a guy who passes out sports cards because he thinks it’s so “cool and different.” And he thinks it works because there’s gum in the package. Have you ever had the gum that comes with baseball cards? It’s a punishment, not a treat.

I know what you’re thinking, but hear me out. Yes, the kids will absolutely love you for this. The rest of the neighborhood, not so much. Your full size candy bars are just making the rest of us look bad. Plus, you’ve set a very high standard for yourself. Word will get around and the kids will be expecting this every year.

As valuable as hand sanitizer is right now, it’s not what the kids want for Halloween. If this is what you want to do, give it to the adults and still have candy available for the kids.

You can blame Taylor Swift for this. You just know there’s some clever Swiftie who thinks it will be cute to pass out bracelets. Sure, but maybe wrap them around a candy bar.

Jelly beans are a very polarizing candy. It depends on the flavor, but you either love them or hate them. Feels like you could probably just hand out Snicker’s or Reese’s and avoid the controversy.

This is one of those trinkets you get from people who don’t want to hand out candy and just go to the dollar store and find whatever the least expensive thing is.

I don’t know where it started, but somehow the crazy idea that raisins are a proper substitute for candy became a thing. This is absolutely 100 percent not true. No one has ever craved a Kit Kat and settled for raisins when they couldn’t get one.

I’m sure this was great fun once upon a time, but here in 2022, pennies are just bacteria carriers that the average person doesn’t really have a use for. Honestly, when was the last time you were super excited to find a penny in your purse or wallet? Kids nowadays probably look at pennies like they’re something out of a museum.

Every neighborhood has some well-meaning person who wants to make sure the kids take care of their oral hygiene while they scarf down all that candy. In theory this is a nice idea. In practice, it’s dangerous, as handing out toothbrushes, toothpaste or floss can lead to a high probability of your house being covered in toilet paper or eggs. Seriously though, the kids should really brush their teeth at the end of the night.

Nuts are a great, healthy snack, but they’re not what you want on Halloween. Do I want them as part of a candy bar? Yes. Do I want a package of peanuts or almonds in my bag of free candy? Not really. Also, nut allergies are so prevalent, you really should try to stay away from nut-based products altogether.

This may sound like an urban myth, but there actually was a house in my neighborhood that gave out mini packs of stationery. I’m sure they thought it was a cute, unique thing to do, but come on guys, no one wants pens, pencils and paper on the one night a year that they get all the candy they want. Why are you trying to remind me of school work?

I know this sounds crazy in our post-COVID world, but back in the day it was pretty commonplace for people to hand out homemade cookies, candy and caramel apples. Then there was a rash of kids being injured by foreign objects like razor blades, medicine like aspirin and in extreme cases poison. After the outbreak of incidents, parents began checking their kids’ bags, with people not even accepting homemade items. Now that COVID-19 is a part of our lives, I can’t imagine anyone being comfortable with homemade candy from a stranger.

Orange slices, fruit cups and berries are all delicious and healthy. However, they don’t always keep well, so if you give them to a child while they’re out all night trick or treating, they won’t be good by the time the kid gets back home. Also, giving someone else’s child fruit is really more about you than them, so just stick with candy, it’s less complicated.

Halloween is not the only holiday where candy is the center of attention. Valentine’s Day and Easter also offer specialty candy as a signature part of celebrating the day. We all know that if you go to the store on Feb. 15 or in mid-April, shelves are overflowing with clearance price sweets. If you happen to have extra boxes of these hanging around the house, do not pass it out for Halloween, that’s just rude.

It seems like this should go without saying, but mints are not candy. Yes, sometimes they come in sweet flavors, but that still doesn’t make them an acceptable Halloween choice. And they can be more expensive than generic brand candy, so you’re spending more money to not pass out candy.

This isn’t a knock on trail mix, but between the nuts, dried fruit and few pieces of chocolate, there’s not much sweetness actually happening. It’s also not what most kids are looking for on Halloween, so you can save this one for lunch boxes and afternoon snacks.

If there’s one thing worse than candy corn, it’s black licorice. Normal flavors of licorice like cherry, grape or strawberry are perfectly fine. But then someone decided “what if we made licorice in hell” and the black versions came along. If you hand this out, you’re letting the rest of the neighborhood know you’ve chosen violence and they can’t trust you.