I give out stickers. And fun pencils (either glittery or sparkly - and yes, they might be a pain to sharpen and the leads might break, but I have that problem constantly with REGULAR pencils, even the so-called good brands, so I refuse to feel guilt about giving out fun-but-poor-quality pencils once a year). And this year I picked up some erasers as well. I hadn't even thought of bookmarks before, but I SUPER love that idea, and will try to find some for next year. And I thought about balloons this year, but they only occurred to be AFTER I'd bought the other stuff, so I missed that boat as well. Next year for that, as well!
The ethical side of it gets tricky. One of the reasons I don't buy chocolate for trick-or-treating is because fair trade/sustainable chocolate is too expensive to give out by the bucketload, and I'm too horrified at how all other chocolate is procured to spend my money on that. But then, when you think of the factory conditions in which most cheap goods are made, am I really being a more ethical consumer by buying those to give out instead? One could get completely paralyzed. In the end, we all can only do the best we can. I won't spend my money on chocolate or coffee that's unethically produced, but I'm not going to condemn anyone else for doing so - and hopefully those who choose to take a stand against unethically produced pencils and stickers will give me grace as well.
(Which is taking this in a completely different direction from your post, but is something that is always on my mind this time of year.)
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chiming
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Date: 2015-10-31 04:05 pm (UTC)From:The ethical side of it gets tricky. One of the reasons I don't buy chocolate for trick-or-treating is because fair trade/sustainable chocolate is too expensive to give out by the bucketload, and I'm too horrified at how all other chocolate is procured to spend my money on that. But then, when you think of the factory conditions in which most cheap goods are made, am I really being a more ethical consumer by buying those to give out instead? One could get completely paralyzed. In the end, we all can only do the best we can. I won't spend my money on chocolate or coffee that's unethically produced, but I'm not going to condemn anyone else for doing so - and hopefully those who choose to take a stand against unethically produced pencils and stickers will give me grace as well.
(Which is taking this in a completely different direction from your post, but is something that is always on my mind this time of year.)