Over the years, Halloween has become a bigger holiday for adults than for children. That’s pretty understandable, since the past few generations seem to include legions of people (myself included) who refuse to grow up. Each year at this time, a variety of seasonal candies that seem to be exclusive to second-most-popular holiday suddenly appear on store shelves. Although some can be found year-round, here is my list of confections that bring back a cornucopia of sweet and spooky memories for me:

DUM DUMS: Made small on purpose for the wee ones, Dum Dums remain the perfect small treat for little goblins.

TOOTSIE ROLL FLAVOR ROLLS: You can get the chocolate ones year round, but I’d only dare to eat cherry, vanilla or banana at Halloween.

WAX LIPS: I must confess, as much as I loved wearing wax lips, (they always got a big laugh) eating them was another story… to this day, I get nauseous remembering the one and only time I tried to consume one of the waxen wonders.

PIXY STIX: It's as fun to say as it is to eat! Interestingly — Pixy Stix were originally created as a drink mix, but kids figured out way back in the 1930s that it’s much more efficient to dump the sugary powder right into your mouth.

SWEETARTS: The grown up offspring of Pixy Stix, SweeTarts are for neat freaks who prefer their tangy, sugary substance in pill form and not all over the bottom of your trick-or-treat bag.

CARAMEL APPLE SUCKERS: Caramel apples are about the only way you can get me to eat fruit most of the time, but on Halloween, rumors of nefarious practices with homemade treats ruined the real deal for most of us decades ago. I don’t know if anyone ever really got a razor blade in an apple or were poisoned with a popcorn ball, but the invention of Caramel Apple Suckers made the real ones obsolete, anyway. If you don’t count tooth decay, these remove the risk.

CANDY DOTS: Crunchy, compact and colorful. These throwbacks have been popular since the 50s, but I defy you to eat a whole strip without getting any paper along with the pretty little candy buttons.

ORANGE [CIRCUS] PEANUTS: While our parents pilfered the chocolate bars out of our bags, as kids, we were left with some puzzling remnants. Orange Peanuts (a.k.a. circus peanuts) remain one of the most bizarre of all Halloween treats: slightly chewy, fruit-flavored candy in the shape of a peanut. Apparently, they are supposed to be marshmallow soft, but inevitably, the ones I got were always stale and crunchy.

CANDY CORN: The No. 1 Halloween treat, hands down. According to Brach’s Confections, each year Americans eat enough candy corn that if the kernels were laid end to end, they would circle the Earth 4.5 times. ‘Nuf said.

Photo Courtesy: C Squared Studios

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