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As we all know, there is an unfathomable variety of Halloween candy. What’s your favorite candy to receive on Halloween?
Halloween is usually all about the costumes, scary movies, and haunted houses. But, of course, it would not be Halloween without treats! As a kid, Halloween was the exciting day where you got to eat as much candy as you wanted. And as we get older, let’s be honest, we still get excited when we see those Halloween bags of candy hit the shelves in stores. However, all candy is not the same: there are chocolates, sour candies, hard candies, licorice, gummies, and all sorts of other treats. When you look into your Halloween bowl of candy, there are candies that are more exciting to see than others.
The top tier Halloween candies include the classics: KitKats, M&M’s, Twix, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and Hershey bars. These are classic chocolates, guaranteed to make you smile and bring back childhood memories of trick or treating. KitKats are always fun to unwrap and break apart; that satisfying “snap” of the bars breaking apart before you bite in makes the whole experience. These are also shareable, so they are an even better treat to find in your candy bowl. Sharing the chocolate with someone else just means that you get to eat more candy—you didn’t even eat the entire chocolate bar…of course you can open another.
M&M’s are also sharable, and the little fun-sized bags usually found in the Halloween candy bags and trick or treat baskets are exactly that: fun! It is a small, cute bag containing a delicious, classic chocolate. What could be better? Twix offers a new flavor into the mix with their caramel filling, perfect for guaranteeing you won’t become too sick of one chocolate flavor after eating all of your best treats first. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are even better during the Halloween season than they are any other time of year. Looking forward to the pumpkin-shaped Reese’s all year, and then finally getting one on Halloween night, is an experience that cannot be topped.
The second tier of Halloween candies includes treats that are great, but not as exciting as the first five. Snickers, Whoppers, and Crunch bars make up this tier. Snickers are good in the bite-sized wrappers you often see on Halloween, but they get old quickly. After a few, I am ready to trade them for another treat. Whoppers are a delicious chocolate snack, but during Halloween when they are lined up against all the other candies, they just do not get me as excited. Finding a bag of Whoppers in your candy bowl is good, but finding a bag of M&M’s is great. Crunch bars feel like they are trying too hard to be different from a Hershey’s bar, but not hard enough to be close to a KitKat. Tasty, but they leave something to be desired.
Middle ground candies are ones that I will eat if I find one or two of them in my candy dish, but more than that, and they might be the ones left uneaten at the bottom of the bowl in a few weeks. These include: Sour Patch Kids, lollipops, Smarties, and Starbursts. Sour Patch Kids are fun, but the sweet and sour flavor gets old fast. Smarties and Starbursts bring back the nostalgia of sitting in an elementary school classroom and the teacher handing out candies. But too many of these, and I’m ready to be an adult again. Lollipops are definitely fun, so they receive points for a fun-factor. However, it can be disappointing when you are halfway through a lollipop and the other candies look enticing, but you have to wait to eat them until after you have finished the lollipop. They are good for an everyday candy, not as good in a Halloween basket.
Lastly, we have the bottom tier candies. I do not want to find these in my trick or treating basket. If you give these out on Halloween, just keep your door closed. They are: Twizzlers, any type of hard candy, Airheads, Nerds, and Hershey’s Kisses. Twizzlers are significantly less fun than other candies on this list, like KitKat’s, festively-shaped Reese’s, and even Sour Patch Kids. Their flavor also fails to make up for the lack of excitement they deliver.
Hard candy is another Halloween disappointment. Halloween is about enjoying delicious treats—and lots of them. Hard candies take too long to finish and their flavors disappear after a few seconds. Airheads have simply never been good. While they do bring some childhood nostalgia, they were not tasty then, and they are still bad now. Nerds, while they bring a decent taste unlike some other candies in this bottom tier, are just not enjoyable to actually eat. A handful of Nerds feels like chewing on a handful of gravel. The taste may be okay, but the texture ruins it. Also, eating Nerds and then switching to another candy often leaves a funny mix of flavors in my mouth. If it does not go well with eating handfuls of chocolate on Halloween, I do not want it.
Lastly: Hershey’s Kisses. Post-Thanksgiving, Kisses are an elite candy. Walking the aisles of a store and seeing Hershey’s Kisses wrapped in red and green for Christmas—as well as the traditional silver wrapper—sparks memories of a cozy winter. It is one of the greatest feelings. Eating Hershey’s Kisses during Halloween ruins this excitement. After eating Kisses in my Halloween basket, come December, they no longer feel new and exciting—it is not worth it eating them on Halloween to sacrifice the winter excitement and feelings of nostalgia they will hold in a month.