Tomorrow is Halloween/Candy Poll

[LCHIEN]

What is your favorite Candy?

Who's working in the shop, watching the World Series (me, Go Astros!) or handing out Candy and sampling the wares.

[LCHIEN]

I got Kit Kats to hand out. I don't mind eating them as left overs... but I get Paydays for my personal consumption!

If we run out of Kit Kats I'll have to decide to close the door and lights or start handing out my Paydays.

If the Astros are doing well, the kiddos may not get any candy at all.

[LCHIEN]

In researching this, I came across a candy bar called Take 5 which is made by Hershey/Reeses.
I didn't include it because I didn't really recognize it.

Turns out it was introduced in 2004 so I am really out of it! But it reads that it has Pretzels, Peanut butter, Caramel, peanuts and a chocolate covering, everything my fave Payday has plus more....
I used to like Rally bars but they stopped making those a long time ago, a payday with chocolate covering.

Anyone eat Take 5 and are they good? Salty Sweet but it almost sounds like too much stuff. Not fond of the texture of Reeses Pieces.

[nicer20]

Payday is my favorite too but for consumption - not giving away

[LCHIEN]

Me too! Paydays for personal use, kit kats for giveaway.

[LCHIEN]

But you didn't vote!

[nicer20]

Oh, I didn't vote because I thought I am not qualified. Still dealing with my bad back - no working in the shop or even possibly handing off candy (walking and standing triggers it so keeping it to bare minimum).

[mpc]

Anything with a goodly amount of chocolate and no nuts or caramel of any sort. Those just displace chocolate. But some other flavors and textures are good, like sweetened peanut butter, whatever makes the crispy in Crispy M&Ms and the cookie part of KitKats, and Nestle Crunch bars. KitKat and Reeses are my favorites, M&Ms are not far behind, especially Crispy M&Ms. Nestle's Crunch is right up there too. And I'll binge candy corn even though it has zero chocolate. Basically just give me chocolate and/or concentrated sugar.

I've seen Take 5... I thought many many years ago back when I was a kid? Something like that existed back then... Not that I ever tried it... nor PayDay. Too much non-candy stuff pictured on their wrappers like peanuts. Tootsie Rolls taste good but I hate having my teeth filled with the hard Spackle they leave behind. Caramel tastes okay but is nothing special to me and it too often packs my teeth too.

I'll be handing out candy like I've done for years now. I get 100+ kids, usually in groups of 3 to 8 kids, on a typical (non-Covid) Halloween. I don't care about the baseball game... but I may have a laptop streaming the football game.

mpc

[leehljp]

My favorites change about twice a year - Tootsie Roll, Baby Ruth, Kit-Kat, Symphony Hershey Bar, M&Ms with peanuts.

LOML buys the bags of mixed varieties to give out. Being in a small town means 20 to 25 on average trick or treaters on our street. Our lots are large so kids have to walk a whole block both sides to get 4 treats. Not worth the effort for smaller kids unless going by car.

I like my candies but I am not a big eater of sweets. A regular Hershey bar will do me for a week. I will eat two squares in the evening to give me a sweet taste and let it go at that until the next evening. The big bags of varieties work well for me. A quarter bag of left overs will do me 6 months or more.

[twistsol]

Can't stand chocolate. My favorite candy bar is Pearson's Salted Nut Roll, but my go to for Halloween candy is Sweet Tarts.

[atgcpaul]

I also love Payday bars.

I voted Snickers, though, as they are one of the few I will actually buy in the supermarket checkout aisle. They have also saved me several times from bonking on a bike ride.

HOWEVER, for Halloween, I used to separate out my candy in 2 piles--the chocolate (luxury) pile and the just your regular pile of sugar-based candies. I usually go through the sugar one quickly and savor the chocolate ones. I'm not a chocolate fiend, but just feel less guilty eating multiples of the sugary ones.

I loved getting Smarties and Tootsie Rolls.

[capncarl]

Having worked for M&M Mars for 36 yrs, I’m a bit partial to their offerings. I have seen almost all of their candy made and packaged and can vouch for their quality. A lots of it I’ve eaten enough to fatten up the mere mortal. My favorite is the Mars Snickers Much bar. It’s a peanut brittle plank that I’ve also eaten tons of. I rarely see it on store shelves but I do buy a supply for the house when I see them. Payday is right up at the top of my favorites too! Growing up a Zero bar was my favorite with its large size, white chocolate and some goo inside. The $1 packs of 5 bars of the major brands is a good sampler size. I purchase them at Dollar General, usually find buy 2 get 1 free sales there. On a good Halloween we will get 2 trick or treaters.

[LCHIEN]

Kids lucked out, Astros - Phillies World Series Game 3 rained out. Philly, of course, we have a roof.

You guys aren't voting I read three of us have Payday as their favorite but there's only my vote! 12 views and 5 votes. hmmm.

Voting closes in 3 days I think.

[nicer20]

Voted - although I may not be eligible voter based on the criteria.

[LCHIEN]

The poll is What's your favorite candy?. No qualifiers.

the other stuff was for discussion.

[LCHIEN]

here they come!

[Stan]

We now live in the country (and I haven't been here in quite some time), so we don't get trick-or-treater's here.
More chocolate for us.

[atgcpaul]

Us, too. Our subdivision has no street lights and the houses are fairly far apart that we didn't feel bad about not leaving the porch light on for Trick or Treaters. I think there are maybe 20 houses but only a handful with kids. We drove our kids to a big development and hit up their neighborhood for candy.

I do miss handing out candy to the kids, though.

[Black walnut]

WE live in the county, barely out of the city limits but have never had a trick-or-trater. Our house sits back a ways and no lights face the street with a dark tree lined driveway. We're fine with that. My youngest brother on the other hand lives in Spokane,WA on a park lined with large old houses. Very popular with trick-or-treaters. With numbers in the neighborhood of 1200 a year. They really get into the spirt of the event with house decorations and costumes. It's a neighborhood thing now. It wasn't as much when we were kids in that neighborhood.

[atgcpaul]

We drove through the historic district of town last weekend to see the Halloween decorations. I left wondering where all these decorations are stored the rest of the year.

[capncarl]

I had a friend that lived in a neighborhood that really went into decorating. He was always the best decorated, with the radio broadcast to passing car radios….. He had a large 3 car garage completely full of Rubbermaid tubs and stacks of plywood decorations. There was barely a walkway from the house back door to the personel door in the garage. Really weird.

[mpc]

There is a house a couple miles away from me... owned by the mother of a kid I used to tutor now and then. The 2-car garage is jammed full of shelves, boxes, and plastic storage bins full of holiday decorations. She used to go all-out for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas... not so much now as her kids have moved out (still local though) and don't help decorate now. I can't imagine having that many decorations... and blowing a whole garage just to store them. A house just outside my neighborhood also goes nuts with HUGE decorations - houses, animals, etc. for Halloween and Christmas. A lot are inflatables but a significant fraction are not inflatable things... I have no idea where/how they store those. Some are taller than a garage! The house is along a local main arterial street so it's fairly well-known around here.

[mpc]

Had quite a few kids again this year but still fewer than pre-Covid times. I used to get around 130 kids a year; I'd say this year was around 80 to 100. I have a fairly large bowl of candy left over...
I did discover something though: the holiday specific Reese's candies - the "ghost" candy and the "pumpkin" candy - are really good! The ghost is white chocolate around a cookie/crunchy core with peanut butter; the pumpkin is regular chocolate around a flavored core. I hadn't tried these before; when I opened the package (pre-trick-or-treaters) I decided "I'm keeping these for myself!"

One parent was slightly bummed out that I didn't have my candy chute this year - the gizmo I made for Covid Halloween days. Just a PVC pipe split in half (bandsaw) supported on 2x4s at an angle. That let me sling candy to kiddies standing about 7 feet away for Covid safety. It had two levels - a low one for toddlers and a higher chute for most kids. It got used during the previous two Halloweens; one Power Rangers girl dubbed it "AWESOME!" as she watched it treating her little brother. That parent asked me about the ramp this year, wondering why I wasn't using it - "it was cool" he said. Most of it is in my shop now... but some 2x4 parts have been shall we say '"re-purposed" for shop duties.

Not many total votes on the survey... just 10 total?

mpc

[capncarl]

Right after Halloween the stores reduce the prices on Halloween specific candy. Our local grocery store had the Reeces ghosts and pumpkin candy for less than half price. Wife picked up several bags of everything to tide us over through Christmas, and you are right, I think I’ll keep these for myself too.