Your last-minute guide to Halloween treats

Happy Monday, Snackology readers. Halloween is this Friday. (Hopefully you have your costumes set. Our daughter randomly decided to be Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc. ... but we’ll see if that sticks when the day is actually here.)

There’s still some time left to picks up candy and snacks for trick-or-treaters. And, let’s not kid ourselves here, yourself. In case you’ve missed this year’s Halloween coverage, here’s everything Snackology thinks you should have on your radar this spooky season.

Ghoulish! Spooky! Shriek-y? It’s a Halloween candy roundup

The calendar has turned to October, and there’s never been a better time to swing by the seasonal aisles at your local Target, CVS and grocery store. (This follows the two worst times of year to visit a seasonal aisle if you’re looking for candy: Summer and back to school.)

For the past few weeks, I’ve been tossing both new varieties of candy and returning favorites into my cart in anticipation of breaking down my favorite finds on Snackology. Are there more than these ten options available? Well, duh. But for the sake of my budget and available storage space, I had to stop at some point. If I missed your favorite Halloween find, let me know.

Do the Monsters Cereal mash with this Henson crossover

I’m kicking off the Halloween season over here at Snackology with a look at the fun crossover between General Mills’ Monsters Cereal and The Jim Henson Company.

“This is more than a cereal box, it’s a piece of art,” Mindy Murray, brand experience director for morning foods at General Mills, said in a statement. “We know that fans have an incredible love for Monsters and anticipate their return every year. That’s why we knew the partnership with The Jim Henson Company was the perfect way to deliver surprise and delight — and the first-of-its-kind fuzzy Franken Berry box.”

If you’ve browsed the cereal or seasonal aisles at any point over the past half century, you’re familiar with at least one of the classic Monsters Cereal brands. Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry are the recurring stars of the show, but General Mills has also added Frute Brute, Fruity Yummy Mummy and even Carmella Creeper at times over the decades since these cereal mascots premiered.

Those first three cereals are getting extra special treatment this year, with their mascots given “a monstrously magical makeover” to celebrate the 70th anniversary of The Jim Henson Company.

The candy corn-iest ranking of everyone’s favorite Halloween treat

There are few types of Halloween candy that aren’t available year round. Sure, they might add some green dye to Snickers and Twix or give M&M’s a bit of pumpkin pie flavoring, but these options don’t disappear from shelves after the calendar turns to Nov. 1.

If you want candy corn, though, you better buy some when it pops into stores in late September and early October. Once Halloween is over, candy corn is gone.

During its limited window of availability each year, you don’t want to accidentally buy the wrong kind of candy corn, which is why Snackology is here to help you figure out the perfect kind of candy corn (and candy corn-adjacent candy) to pick up this October.

Boo Buckets are back to scare up some McDonald’s Halloween fun

If you were a kid back in the 1980s and 1990s, the McDonald’s Happy Meal around Halloween was unrivaled. Sure, Happy Meal toys back then were always fantastic, but when trick-or-treat time rolled around, you could get a Halloween bucket at McDonald’s.

I’m still envious of the people who had the ghost bucket. We had a bunch of pumpkin buckets and a witch bucket at our house, but we never got the ghost one. It glowed in the dark! How could I not have been envious of the kids who had that one.

At some point during the 2010s, McDonald’s stopped offering the Halloween pails. I’m not sure the reasoning behind that decision, but like many great Happy Meal perks from back then — the iconic Hot Wheels/Barbie summer duo, those lemon-y McDonaldland cookies — it appeared that the Halloween buckets had been locked away in the terrifying Officer Big Mac prison somewhere deep in the confines of McDonaldland.

But then something magical happened a few years ago.