Family Tradition Alert!

The family and I went to my parent’s house last night for our annual pumpkin carving chaos! Halloween with my family is a big deal, full of traditions and month-long decorating and celebrations. My parents turn their entire yard into endless graveyards and ‘scenes’, complete with 7 ft. tall moving werewolves and witches that scare the daylights out of Ninja (as we learned this evening, by accident). The pumpkin carving is probably my favorite part, though, because it’s the only thing that’s gone unchanged in 20 years. We sit in the same living room, using the same tools, watching the same movie – Hocus Pocus. We still have the same patterns we started with 20 years ago, though we’ve photo copied them to make them new again and, each year, we add a new book. Mom’s kitchen table is covered in dozens upon dozens of patterns from which to choose! As a kid, I always picked fairies, cats, and cute little faces and, well, that hasn’t changed much. This year I did two creepy little cartoon kids. VagabonHusband carved the BoogeyMan, ArtistChild carved a skull (her very first pumpkin without any help!), and Ninja…ate dinner and watched Hocus Pocus whilst ignoring our shenanigans. A few more years, buddy, and you’ll have a carving knife in your hand! For twenty years, I’ve been begging my mom to let me carve a Jack-O-Lantern instead of a patterned pumpkin. This year I managed to get Finn to ask my step-dad for a pumpkin with ‘Two eyes, One Nose’, and he agreed. Why do grandkids always get the thinks we didn’t?

Does your family carve pumpkins?