Save some Halloween candy for your gingerbread house

Bright, colorful candies make perfect gingerbread house decorations.

Tue, Nov 01 2011 at 12:51 PM

Related Topics:

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Halloween, Christmas

I can’t take credit for this idea. I borrowed it from my friends Lynn and Corey on their Celebrate Green blog post Too Many Halloween Treats? 10 good ways to get rid of it! One of their clever and reasonable ideas is to save some of the Halloween candy to decorate your gingerbread house at Christmas time.

See that gingerbread house above? My boys made that last year. They seem to take pleasure in making the tackiest gingerbread house they can at our annual church gingerbread house party. I always call their finished creation a duplex because they each take half of the gingerbread house and do their own thing. The two sides never match.

While other families at our church party have plans of action to create perfect gingerbread houses that they can take home and add to their holiday décor, my family takes a much more free-spirited attitude. I usually put our gingerbread house someplace inconspicuous when it gets home.

A quick look through the two pillowcases full of candy in my living room from last night’s trick-or-treating reveals lots of colorful candy that can be used to decorate a gingerbread house like the one above (or one that’s a bit more planned out.) Here is some of the candy that I found that could be used. I’m sure there are others, too.

Skittles
Dots
M&M’s
Starburst
Nerds
Laffy Taffy
Candy Sticks (formerly known as Candy cigarettes)
Reese’s Pieces

If you’re trying to thin out the amount of Halloween candy that your children collected yesterday, this is a great way to do it without just dumping the candy in the trashcan. For more ideas on getting rid of too much candy, check out Celebrate Green’s ideas.

Do you have any clever ways to reuse or get rid of some of the candy that has taken over your house after Halloween?

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