Time to carve the pumpkins

I don't know why I like carving pumpkins, but I do. Traditionally each year I carve a face called "Boofus" into a pumpkin. Between school field trips, travel for work, and my general cheapness (had some opportunities to buy convenient but over priced pumpkins and cheaped out) there will be no Boofus this year. But the kids picked pumpkins and tonight they each came up with their design. First up was Casey's pumpkin. She went with what she called "scary."

The pumpkin she picked out of a patch in Burnt Hills was the hardest pumpkin I have ever carved. This thing was solid. I could not open it with a knife. I ended up using a hacksaw. I had trouble with the hack saw. This thing was an orange rock. The beastly pumpkin broke two carving saws and several times I thought I was going to be in the market for a new paring knife. It became personal. It was me against the pumpkin. In the end, the pumpkin lost.

 

That freakin rock of a pumpkin took well over an hour to carve. Next up was Allison. She did not go the scary route.

I feared having to carve another pumpkin from hell. These came out of the same patch, not too far from each other. Luck was on my side and this pumpkin carved like a non-evil pumpkin. She hasn't seen it yet, I spent so much time on the first pumpkin that bedtime came before I could finish. I think I captured her vision and hope she'll be happy with it.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween 2010

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Other than the 4th of July, it is the only non-secular holiday that is REALLY celebrated in this country. Yes, I know there are other holidays that fit the non-secular bill, but are they really celebrated? Have you ever seen a kid excited for a month, bursting with anticipation and counting the days until Washington's Birthday? The sales are good, but c'mon. 

My love of Halloween must have had something to do with growing up in the same house as "The Snickers Lady." That is what my mother became known as. In a pre-warehouse club era, my father had a client that owned a news stand. Every October, the order would go in and we would get boxes of full sized Snickers bars. A box of 36 candy bars at a reasonable price is much easier to get now. Costco, BJ's or Sam's will have them. My parents house in on a corner. If you come up the driveway, you go to what our family calls "the back door." If you walk up the path from the other street, you are at, you guessed it, "the front door." Pretty creative, eh? It is not uncommon for both doorbells to be ringing at the same time on Halloween. As a kid at the awkward "I shouldn't be wearing a costume" age, I can remember answering the door my mother wasn't at and handing out these full sized candy bars to kids. When you hand a kid a old enough to know the difference between fun-size and full-sized candy bars, the expression of sheer glee on their face is really fun to see. Perhaps I over analyzing or projecting, but for that specific moment in time all is good in that kid's corner of the universe.

That excitement stuck with me. The street I live one doesn't get much trick or treat traffic. I always overbuy candy with dumb optimism. This year I bought a box Nestle Crunch bars and another box of Kit Kats (I wanted Twix but BJ's only sells them in a combo pack now).  Of the 20 or so we handed out to trick-or-treaters, I'd guess 8 of them had OMFG expressions on their faces when they saw their choices. Two of the 8 were even kind of bouncing. The extra candy goes to the mailman, the kid's teacher's, people at work, and a collection for soldiers. I guess some of The Snickers Lady rubbed off on me.

The big change in our 2010 Halloween was the pumpkin carving. For at least 15 years, I have annually carved the same face into a pumpkin. Here's my buddy Boofus:

This year, I had two pumpkins and two aspiring jack-o-lantern designers. I still did the carving working off of drawings the girls made. I came pretty close. They were happy with the finished product. Maybe next year, Boofus.