For an edible alternative, give out pretzels, crackers, or fruit snack packs, or organic snacks. For a non-edible treat, try giving out glow sticks, plastic rings, bookmarks, figurines, toys like bouncy balls or yo-yos, stickers, or Halloween-themed pencils.
Make sure the packaging on your candies is intact as well. Ripped candies can pick up dirt and germs, and kids or parents will typically toss them out.
You can also set out jack-o-lanterns and other fun Halloween decorations, like fake cobwebs, skeletons, and ghosts, to attract trick-or-treaters.
Choose something they’ll be able to recognize, like a classic witch or ghost, or something sweet and silly, like a big animal or a cowboy/cowgirl. If you dress up as something scary, you could even pop out and try to scare a group of trick-or-treaters, but be careful—you don’t want to scare them too much! Only do this if most of your trick-or-treaters are older kids.
If you have extra candy near the end of the night, you can even encourage trick or treaters to grab a handful.
If you want, you can give them tips about the rest of the neighborhood, too! For example, you could say something like, “Make sure to go all the way to the end of the block. They have lots of candy down there!”
If someone rings your doorbell after you’ve turned off your lights, you can still answer the door, but you don’t have to. They should assume that you’re not home, or that you’ve gone to sleep.
