Halloween seems to be getting bigger every year in the UK and whatever your thoughts on the commercial aspect of it, you can’t deny that kids love it!

This will be the first year that both of our children are vegetarian for Halloween, as previously only one of them was. This has got me thinking about how we’re going to deal with the whole vegetarian sweets issue…

For various reasons I’m not a fan of trick or treating, but my boys love it and so a friend and I usually join up for moral support and take our children out together. Trick or treating is huge where we live, with kids (including teenagers) knocking on doors until long after our own children’s bedtime.

Luckily there seems to be an unwritten rule that only houses that have Halloween decorations up should be bothered, so a) no one who doesn’t believe in Halloween is too badly affected, b) it makes you feel less guilty about knocking on doors as you know those people’s kids will probably be knocking on yours too, and c) you can take your decorations down at bedtime so that the doorbell doesn’t keep waking everyone up!

As you’re no doubt aware though, many of the sweets received aren’t vegetarian. Last year our one son swapped these with his brother for vegetarian ones, but this year that won’t be an option. As far as I can tell, our alternatives are:

1. not going trick or treating (my preference but my boys will not see this as a viable option!)
2. throwing away all the non vegetarian sweets (I have a particular hatred of waste, so not keen on this myself)
3. trying to get rid of as many of them as possible with the trick or treaters that knock on our door afterwards
4. giving any still left over to friends

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, we are very proud of our boys’ convictions regarding eating vegetarian sweets, as we have in no way forced them to make this decision. I do therefore think it’s important that they miss out as little as possible, so we will make sure there are plenty of vegetarian treats in our house for them. Luckily this isn’t too difficult these days, with vegetarian gummy sweets and even vegan marshmallows becoming more easily available.

How do you feel about Halloween? Do you join in enthusiastically, boycott it entirely or, like me, are you somewhere in the middle?