Next Year’s Halloween Handouts (and a recap of this year)
17So, I’ve created somewhat of a monster. Three years ago, Meh sold light up fidget spinners, and like any good mehtizen, I bought a ton and gave them out instead of candy. Last year I stumbled on a hoard of Sea World trinkets that I gave out (I’m sorry it was another website, I get around you know). This year, with an overstock of Sea World trinkets, we created a Souvenir stand to pass them out. Needless to say, we got lots of comments and the kids loved it. I’m astounded at how many Busch Gardens spoons they took (those were really only meant to be there as a joke). Anyway, Meh, I’m in need of some help for next year. If you stumble on any low cost light up trinkets, please let me know, even if they are branded in some weird way (safe for kids please). Looking for my next Halloween theme based around the (non-candy) giveaways. I like the idea of a Carnival game, but I’m open to any and all ideas, just looking for something that doesn’t break the bank (so far I’ve been able to get away with $0.50-1.00 per kid). Thanks!
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I love the souvenir stand!! Spoons… Who knew!
This is great!!! What is this other site you speak of?
@tinamarie1974 it’s called BIDFTA. They are only in a few states though, but they specialize in returns from big box stores. It’s addicting like the BOC. Some great deals, some absolute crap.
@kykazaa thanks, they have a bunch of locations in the Lou. Signed up and will check back to see if I can score anything good.
I am signed up for a similar company called BCL. Not sure if they are just local, but have bought a few things from them before.
@tinamarie1974 are you in Louisville? I lived there for about 7 years and was just down there and am now just up in Cincinnati.
@kykazaa no, no St Louis. I didn’t know Louisville was also the Lou!!!
I was unable to man the door this year. I left a bowl of full size candy bars with a sign that said “Honor system. One per person please”. Reviewing the doorbell footage, I was disappointed that probably 60% of the people took multiple bars. I had a few adults accompanying their kids that each took 4 or 5 for themselves. I estimate that the 150 bars was exhausted by about 60 trick-or-treaters.
The year I did fidget spinners (I was down the street from a house that had been on that ghost buster’s show so tons of kids since that house was always really fancy for halloween), a kid ran into the street screaming this house has fidget spinners (I was in a town house 8 houses from the street) and I got mobbed. Now I live in an apartment building in a commercial district so no trick or treaters.
@Kidsandliz the fidget spinners were so great
Amazing idea! I always have something non-food for kids with allergies!
I ordered 400 mini stroopwafels and gave out handfuls of those.
@kittykat9180 I thought about it, but trying to stay away from food items altogether
I fix up little baggies of various treats, some non-candy, some not sweet. Except for the non-candy, all stuff I like in case I get stuck with it. My neighborhood runs hot and cold from year to year. I fixed up 20 baggies and got 17 kids.
@ironcheftoni
The bags were always my favorite.
The fidget spinners got my wife hooked on alternative handouts. Last year she had light up jelly rings like this:
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B017DTNMGE/
We had a couple dozen of them left this year. To add to that this year she got 800 glow bracelets (thin glow sticks). They were a little bit of a hassle because you had to put the connector on each one, but they were incredibly cheap and still loved by the kids. She said all those bracelets was cheaper than a big bag of candy at Walmart, but I don’t see anything at Amazon close to that now. She did buy them a while back, maybe prices change seasonally. It was something like this: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B081HZLL8G/
We had a bumper crop of trick or treaters this year with a weekend Halloween and good warm weather, and ended up giving out close to 500 glow bracelets. At pretty much one per kid plus ones that got candy or the rings we set a new record this year.
My wife likes to also have candy and ask the kids if they want candy or a bracelet (or whatever). Most of the kids pick the non-candy option.
@djslack I tried a few of these this year (I got a pack of 50) I couldn’t really get them to work, but I did like this idea. Might have to try harder next year.
@djslack 500??? Holy cow!!
@RiotDemon I know!
I am a little suspicious because when I looked at the Amazon listings for glow bracelets some of them seem to call 400 bracelets and 400 connectors 800 pieces. I’m going on my wife’s information for the numbers but I should look at one of the three tubes of them we have left unopened to see that they actually have 100 in each and weren’t using cheaty piece counts.
It was pretty busy, though, and we usually see at least 200 on a Halloween night. With the great weather and it being a Sunday night there did seem to be a lot of people around. It looks like a trick or treating scene from the movies in my neighborhood, just swarms of kids all up and down the street. I was doing everything but handing out treats most of the time because we had a lot of family over, so I stayed busy elsewhere for most of the night.
Man I wanna go trick or treating where you guys live. I promise @DrWorm I’ll only take one.
We ended up with enough fidget spinners to give them out 2 years in a row. This year we didn’t spot anything like that, so we gave out mini stroopwafels.
I dig your souvenir stand!
Fidgetween was amazing.