Get Dirty, Get Creative, Carve your Pumpkins!
Halloween is approaching, and what better thing is there to do than carve pumpkins?!
The boys and I set out on another adventure. Typically, I would have gone to a pumpkin patch and spent our time walking the endless paths through the fields, searching for the perfect pumpkins and taking pictures.
But heck, I’ll be honest: I heard Aldi had pumpkins for $2.50, and I was sold!
Seriously, who offers one price for any size pumpkin?
Kudos to you, Aldi. 👍🏻
Anyway, I digress...
We bought five pumpkins, packed them into the back of the SUV, and then headed out to get our carving tools.
Pumpkin carving sure has changed since I grew up. You walk through the aisle and find stickers, little plastic Potato Head-style arms and legs to stick into the pumpkin, paint, and all kinds of other decorations.
Then you find the actual old-school carving sets with the little useless spoon that you eventually abandon because using your hands is the only way to remove all the guts!
But that’s my point: What fun are the stickers and pre-made arms and legs that you simply stick into the pumpkin? Where’s the opportunity to stimulate our children’s creativity and let them make something of their own?
And where’s the fun if you aren’t covered up to your elbows in orange, gooey seeds from inside the pumpkin?
Thankfully, they make stencils with ideas of what to draw. Someone like me needs a visual before an idea pops into my head.
The boys found pictures of what they wanted on their pumpkins and “helped” while I attempted to trace the characters for them.
Bennett was dead set on a spider.
Hudson wanted a mummy, which was way beyond my skill level. We went back and forth between a jack-o’-lantern, a pirate, a ghost, “Happy Halloween,” a regular pumpkin, and then back to the mummy.
In the end, I’m pretty sure he didn’t even care.
What I thought would take a couple of hours turned into a day-long event, but in the grand scheme of things, it was worth it.
When I tucked the boys into bed that night, Bennett told me his favorite part of the day was pulling the “yucky” stuff out of his pumpkin.
So, if you have kids, rock it old school.
Get dirty. Be creative. Waste an entire day staining your hands orange.
Better yet, if you don’t have kids, grab your favorite beverage, pick out some pumpkins, and make a date out of it.
Happy Halloween, everyone!
