Growing up my family had many traditions that we have now incorporated into our traditions. My parents invited friends to come over and bring their pumpkins to carve. We covered the big dining room table with paper and went at it. In the end we would put them all on the counter to admire. After Jack was born we wanted to make this a tradition with our friends.
For the last four Halloweens we have gotten together with friends to carve pumpkins and let the kids play. Each year the kids are becoming more involved. This year they actually wanted to help carve, to bad they don’t make safety carving tools. The kids each made their choices about what they wanted on their pumpkin (most choosing a difficult one, thanks Jack).
One change we have made to our childhood carvings is the introduction of power tools. We have incorporated drills, jig saws and dremels. The first year one of our friends actually cut his finger on the jig saw, oops. It adds some new abilities, like shaving out designs. If anyone has any ideas of tools to add to our arsenal let me know.
As the adults carved, the big kids were in and out playing and Will was jumping. After an hour and a half of working we had carved (or glitter pen decorated) 10 pumpkins. I still had 3 more left to complete today. (Who is this all for again?) We lined them up for our annual photo and kid inspection.
After I completed the rest of our pumpkins the lineup included Jim’s Husky Icon, Will’s happy face with 2 teeth, Jack’s Transformer face, a spider, scary face, my scared face and the holey one. I think it is a pretty good looking group.
Sarah
Very impressive. I must admit this is by far our most sophisticated bunch to date!