I have some sympathy for you, having to come up with some analogy to explain something (the Higgs giving mass to particles) for which there is no reason to imagine a good analogy exists. I certainly can't think of one! However, you might be interested to read a particle physicist complaining about the use of the treacle analogy: http://x-sections.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/how-to-explain-higgs-mechanism.html