One of the favorite, long-standing traditions in our extended family is the Halloween Family Pumpkin Carving Party. Over the years, we’ve gathered on the Monday evening prior to Halloween to create our own jack-o-lantern masterpieces using pumpkins from Grandma and Grandpa’s garden.
As many times as we’ve done this, the jack-o-lantern carving techniques never seem to evolve into anything substantially more artistic than a few holes for eyes and a mouth. Carving tools are another matter, though. We eschew the flimsy little knife and spoon carving kits available on the market, preferring our own tried-and-true carving methods:
The serrated steak knife
The ice cream scoop gut removal technique
And the power drill precision hole-making technique
If your head is spinning and you are thinking about child endangerment, I will not tell you about the year that the pumpkins were so large and the rinds so thick that we had to use a Mikita power saw to carve holes in them.
The Pumpkin Carving Party is not for the squeamish, and that fact has meant that grandkids with sensory issues sometimes opt to stay out of the kitchen. Still, the pumpkin gutting tradition lives on.
Making Family Traditions Traditional
As far as traditions go, this one is pretty deeply-held. The Pumpkin Carving Party rivals Christmas and Easter in importance. One of the reasons may simply be the consistency. Every year, there are pumpkins to carve. Every year there is homemade chili, and every year, there are Grandma Lottie’s Spudnuts.
My mom has been serving donuts on Halloween for 45 years. Neighbors young and old know when it’s donut-making day, and trick-or-treaters show up from miles around hoping the tradition lives on. There’s something intensely comforting about knowing that there are some things in life that can always be counted on. That may be one of the reasons we hold to this tradition so tightly.
The leaves are falling and that means that by next week, everything will look different. Daylight Savings Time is going to change the time of day we get up and go to bed. The warm summer nights playing in the backyard will stop. Displays of apples will replace the nectarines and strawberries in the produce aisle. But there will ALWAYS be the smell of donuts and pumpkin flesh in Grandma’s kitchen on the Monday prior to Halloween.
There is something satisfying about creating family traditions that you can count on year after year. While the particulars evolve and change, the basics stay the same. The day will come when Grandpa isn’t here to plant and harvest the pumpkins anymore, but the value of the family ties he and Grandma have helped forge will continue. It’s a fair bet that the next generation will continue to roast hot dogs outdoors and dip caramel apples with grandchildren of their own. In fact, it’s something we are all counting on.
