The Holiday Sugar-Fest!

Halloween marks the beginning of the holiday season.  OH NO!!!!! The “sugar-fest” begins.  Trick-or-treating runs into pecan and pumpkin pie which turns into sugar cookies at Christmas or jelly donuts at Hanukkah which is post-scripted with Valentine sweets and chased into spring with chocolate bunnies. No wonder kids seem to get sick more often in the winter. Did you really think it was the cold weather…in Florida?

What many parents don’t know about sugar is that it does a lot more than cause tooth decay.  It is actually an immune-suppressive.  It greatly lowers the body’s ability to fight off the flu, viruses and bacterial infections. It also causes tiredness, irritability, nervousness, hyperactivity/attention disorders and depression. 

Now, you could move to a country that does not celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas or Hanukkah, Valentine’s Day and Easter… or you can try what I found successful when raising two young boys. They would go out to trick-or-treat, but then left their sack of candy out at night for The Great Pumpkin.  The Great Pumpkin took the candy and left them a toy in exchange.  My boys even had fun writing letters to The Great Pumpkin (who lives in The Great Pumpkin Patch, of course) about which toy they wanted to receive.  For older children, you could do as my friend.  She simply buys back each piece of candy and then takes her son to his store of choice to buy whatever he wants with his “earnings.” For the other holidays, we just keep sugar to a minimum and use toys and trinkets whenever possible, like their Easter baskets.  Also, loading their bodies up with Vitamin B complex and Vitamin C will help offset the ill effects of the sugar.

Let’s keep the holiday sugar-fest under control and have a happier and healthier holiday season.