Trick-or-treating is fun. You get to walk around the neighborhood in the dark while wearing a disguise, knock on strange doors & peek inside different houses, smelling new smells and seeing small glimpses of people’s life, all the while getting interesting things that come all wrapped up in tiny, crinkly, shiny packages. Candy. But what is one supposed to DO with candy? In theory, it’s edible. I mean, certainly it’s ingestible. So are play-dough, newspaper, tempera paint, bits of wool, and the occasional small pebble. But to that end, I would prefer we not have too much.

And this is where the Candy Faerie comes in. After Halloween, all candy is donated to the Candy Faerie. She thrives on candy! So we build a house of candy to lure her in. Oh, how she loves candy houses! The Candy Faerie, you might want to know, is good friends with the Tooth Faerie. It seems an unlikely partnership, but it is true. The Candy Faerie eats candy and thus, it logically follows, the Tooth Faerie eats teeth. Yum.

“Does the Tooth Faerie ever eat the teeth right out of your mouth?” Iris asked a couple years ago, when we first started gifting the Candy Faerie and discussing useful household faeries in general.

“Yes,” I said. “When you eat the Candy Faerie’s candy, the Tooth Faerie eats your teeth right out of your mouth.”

Iris is more interested in dissecting, smashing, and building with candy than eating it. She likes her teeth.