Mike Burns likes to show off his family's Halloween spirit, a lot.
"We've got a couple of banners, pumpkins, ghost, goblins and pumpkins lots of pumpkins," said Burns.
Though he and his family have decked their house in Carolina Forest with Halloween down to their dogs, Lady and Max, who are costumed as pumpkins, the part of the holiday Burns likes the most is sweet.
"It's fun. Since we were little kids, we did it. It's a lot of fun to see the little kids get their candy and get all excited. It's Halloween."
Halloween is a sweet tooth's favorite holiday, and a dieter's worst nightmare.
A CNN report says doctors estimate a bag of Halloween candy contains 3,500 to 7,000 calories.
The report says it would take an average 100 pound child would 44 hours walking, or playing full court basketball for 14 1/2 hours straight to burn it all off.
But if you plan to let your kids eat the entire bag, it's best to have them splurge, said Small Smiles Dentist Mike Alessi. "If you're going to have that sticky candy, and you're going to drag it on for that period of time, you're going to see more decay than if they just eat it, brush their teeth, and be done with it."
You may think the majority of Halloween toothaches belong to children, they don't, said Dr. Alessi.
"Most of the people I see come in after Halloween with toothaches are moms and dads who dig into the bag and eat candy they're not supposed to."
A problem Burns is familiar with.
"Reese's pieces, you can't go wrong," said Burns. "Mom can't bring the candy home until Halloween day or else we eat it all."
