Ours is one of those families where Halloween can be A Big Deal. Some of my fondest memories are of being escorted around the old neighborhood trick-or-treating with my legs, arms, and head sticking out of a cardboard box decorated to make me look like (or think I looked like) Astro Boy.
As one might expect from a child surrounded by adults who insist on reliving their childhoods every October 31st (and no, I never again wore a box as a costume), the Pipsqueak also enjoys the holiday -- although to her credit, as she's gotten older she gains at least as much enjoyment from giving out candy to the younger kids in her neighborhood as she does from making the costumed rounds to collect some herself. She has also always enjoyed the family jack o'lantern carving sessions, which are usually creative and chaotic and noisy and messy, somehow resulting in at least 2 or 3 carved pumpkins and a nice supply of oven-roasted, salted pumpkin seeds.
In fact. she has apparently enjoyed this latter activity more than we realized, since we've missed it a couple of times in recent years without too much in the way of obvious comments... but after looking through a bunch of photos from her 3rd birthday onward to more recent times, she INSISTED that we should try to recreate one of the oldest Halloween-related family photos that she'd come across. (There are other factors at play here, things I've not included in the blog -- but which I may begin writing about because it's all very much part of the family story. No promises... but stay tuned... I think.)
In any case, we had all pretty much spoken about this year's Halloween being pretty much a wash-out due to everyone's fave virus, especially since the national and local numbers have once again been trending strongly in the wrong direction. I was therefore surprised when, about a week ago, AJ turned up at my house to pick up the Pipsqueak (one of those all-too-rare occasions when she could get off work early enough to get Miri to one of her late dance classes instead of my having to take her) and lugged in a not-huge-but-still-big pumpkin for me and announced that she'd bought one for each household and we were all going to get together the upcoming Saturday to carve our pumpkins.
This being 2020 (and things being the way they are with all our schedules anyway), that didn't work out -- so we ended up waiting another week and made plans to get together for a family carving session early in the afternoon on Halloween itself, since Miri was abostively posilutely not gonna let us not.
As tired and stressed and pressed for time as we all were, all immediate family members (and all immediate family member pumpkins) were at Mom & Dad's within about 45 minutes of the planned meeting time (Dude, that's pretty good timing for this family!) and after a late lunch -- and a visit from a young buck we recognized from the previous year by his lopsided antlers -- we cleared a kitchen counter, laid out a bunch of paper, and the design phase began.
Despite my commenting on how difficult some of the shapes that Miri drew might be to actually carve into the side of a pumpkin, it wasn't long before everyone was (sometimes literally) elbow-deep into their usual jobs... Mom & Dad working on their pumpkin near the stove (for various reasons, they were using stick-on shapes & Sharpie pens instead of carving), AJ at the sink to separate pumpkin seeds from pumpkin guts & prepare them for roasting, and Yours Truly at the other kitchen counter happily stabbing, jabbing, sawing, slicing, and scraping with an assortment of knives and spoons. Miri had been planning to do some carving herself, but it took all of about 15 seconds of watching her attempt to take a knife to her pumpkin for us to decide she could hollow it out but that Uncle Brian would be wielding any and all sharp and/or pointy implements that day, so (with an occasional Tween iPhone break) she was delegated to scooping out the pumpkin goop as work progressed.
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| Those gloves aren't for the virus; Miri just doesn't like what pumpking goop feels like! |
Despite my beginning to move progressively more slowly as time passed (I woke up this morning and immediately took two Aleve... and then again just before typing this at 11:00pm!), we all powered through the usual variety of unplanned oopses, hidden rotten spots, dropped pumpkin goop, extra-hard or extra-soft spots, and shapes that proved waaaay harder to carve than expected and soon had some pretty decent jack o'lanterns, if I say so myself! (The "S nose" was entirely Miri's design, the jagged grin was what I came up with.)
Then came the photo... or should I say, "THE PHOTO!"...? Despite some pessimistic comments along the lines of, "...but you take up a lot more space than you did back then, " and "...you're a lot bigger now," and "...I'm not sure you're actually gonna fit there, kiddo," we found a way to make it work. (It truly did not help that I had forgotten to bring my camera & tripod as planned, and thus had to build a wobbly pyramid of assorted things upon which I could raise & prop up my iPhone to take the photo... Believe me, there are plenty more versions of the pic than what you see here!)
We were all a little concerned about leaving our various abodes unsupervised on Halloween evening -- especially with all the joyous events brought to us by the year 2020CE thus far! -- so AJ & Miri headed to their house and I returned to mine sometime around 6:00pm, the former to "probably" sit out front as usual with candy just in case any trick-or-treaters showed up, the latter to simply leave all the lights out to discourage any crowds at the front door (I've been averaging well over 150 kids at the door on Halloween every year since before Miri came home). This morning's reports were pretty much what I'd worried would happen -- zero kids at Mom & Dad's, zero kids at AJ & Miri's, and zero kids at my place. (Some of Mom & Dad's neighbors reported a scattering of costumed kids, but the totals were only around a dozen.) It was a kind of sad and odd Halloween, but the five of us had fun both with the creative process and with our being able to recreate one of the Pipsqueak's favorite family photographs.
Thus, in closing, I present for your viewing pleasure both the 2020 Family Pumpkin Carving Photo, followed by its inspiring predecessor from 2011. I dunno... a few things have changed, but all in all I think we done good with the recreation!
So there you have it, an old family tradition interrupted & almost forgotten over the years, brought back to life at the insistence of the Pipsqueak (who is very obviously quite a bit less pipsqueakish since that older photo was taken almost a decade ago).
I hope youse guys all had a safe & fun & healthy holiday, and that none of the viral numbers are affecting you directly... I'll post again soon (strangely enough, Miri's virtual schooling is a good story generator) but until then stay healthy and make sure you vote on November 3rd if you haven't already!
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