Pumpkin Carving

The last time I carved pumpkins may have been in university, at some Halloween event, or in elementary school, at some Halloween event. Needless to say, it’s been a while and it’s all a blur. This year, I told myself, would be a throwback year.

Just kidding, I was influenced by someone else to try it out. Initially, there were some budding hopes to go to a pumpkin patch and take photos, pick out pumpkins, and all that jazz, but one downside of living in my city is that the weather is absolute garbage 9/10 days. Trekking around a muddy field in the pouring rain while carrying heavy orange things seemed like it could be somewhat fun, but we decided to ultimately forego it in the end. However, the idea of carving a pumpkin wasn’t lost on us. In the end, our objective was clear: we were going to carve some pumpkins in 2021.

Now that the pumpkin patch option wasn’t available to us, the question became how do we find a pumpkin? In the end, it was way easier done than said. While the first store we checked out was a complete miss (with pumpkins for sale that looked like they were from last year, or even the year before), the second store had some pretty aesthetic pumpkins. After a bit of searching and parting with $3.99, we had our canvases ready. Once that was ready, we went home, were productive for a few hours, and then created these masterpieces.

Can you guess which one was mine? Hint: it’s the uglier one. Between the two of us, she’s definitely the more talented one. Still, carving these pumpkins was a lot more fun and a lot easier than I had initially expected. Even the grunt-work of removing the seeds and flesh was oddly satisfying. The saddest part about pumpkins is that, even though they’re massive, there’s almost nothing inside. At least that makes our lives a little easier.

One of my friends asked how we did it when I mentioned it, and in particular if we used any tools. Not really, all we needed was our creativity, a sharpie, a big spoon, and a knife. Somehow, carving pumpkins seemed super messy in my memories, but when we did it there was hardly any mess that wasn’t contained. Maybe as a kid you end up being clumsier, and as adults we’re more conscientious about not making a mess. Anyways, it was fun and this is something that would be fun to do as an annual tradition. Over time, I might even get better at it.