Using Plastic Containers with Lids to Store All Your Holiday Candy

Any parent can tell you that kids barley get through all the extra candy they get for one holiday before they are collecting it for another.  The candy calendar goes from Halloween to Christmas to Valentine's Day to Easter to end-of-school-year parties—all of which come with lots and lots of candy.  

Instead of letting that candy sit in your best mixing bowl or your crowded refrigerator, try getting plastic containers with lids for all your children. That way each child knows how much they have left, and you can monitor how much each child is eating. 

Here are a few tips for using convenient plastic containers with lids for your kids' holiday candy.

• Let your kids help you pick out the containers.  It's fun to cruise websites and discuss the pros and cons of each container.  Your kids will probably have some good insights into which ones will work best for everyone.  It's probably a good idea to get each child the same kind of container.

• Let your kids decorate their containers.  Paint  pens or stickers make excellent decorations.  If each child has the same kind of plastic container with a lid, they can make them unique by decorating. 

• Get the candy in there immediately.  If you have more than one child, you know it isn't long before the candy starts to get mixed together, or one child eats all her own chocolate and starts to eye her brother's.  As soon as trick-or-treating is done, stockings are emptied, valentines are opened or the Easter bunny has left, the candy goes right into that plastic container. 

• Let your kids know that you're watching.  Clear plastic containers with lids make it easy for you to know whether the level of candy is going down faster than it should.  You might allow your child 2 pieces of candy a day, but if the candy's disappearing at a faster rate, you'll know. Also, those lids make it harder to sneak illegal candy; it simply takes longer and makes more noise to remove a lid, take candy and replace the lid.  That increases the chance that you'll catch your little culprit in the act.

• Remind your kids that the goal is a healthy body.  It's easy for kids to think you're just being mean when you put their candy in plastic containers with lids they can't easily open. But as adults, we know that too much of a good thing (and candy is definitely a good thing) can harm your body.  Make it clear that you love them enough to want them to be their healthiest, and that's the only reason their candy consumption is restricted.

If your candy sits in a drawer in a refrigerator or in a mixing bowl that you need for other things, buying your kids clear plastic containers with lids might be the perfect solution to keeping both children and parents happy about holiday candy.