And Merry Samhain to all my fellow Wiccans out there!
As you've noticed from my previous posts, I've often declared that this time of year is my favorite, and that includes this holiday! And holidays, of course, bring about traditions.
Now here's the interesting thing about marriage. Ok, ONE of the interesting things. Being happily married to my wonderful husband Mark for seven years now he and I have created a new family unit. And in that new family unit comes the need to create new traditions for, well, everything. But mainly holidays. Now, new traditions are also influenced by old traditions. Like the ones that are your fond, childhood memories of your own family traditions. The ones that you should keep with your new family unit because they are such fond memories. And your other half, also wanting to keep those happy, childhood memories of their own going with their new family with you, will bring their traditions as well. And those will be new to you.
That was a really complicated way of saying that my husband and I both had some old traditions that we did for this Halloween season, and they were ones that neither of us had done before.
Here, I'll tell the full story, with pictures as well!
So, this first tradition is one from my childhood, one that I love dearly. The hayride out to the pumpkin patch to get a pumpkin!!! Who wouldn't love that tradition!
So I was surprised, when I suggested that I wanted to do this, that my husband was not as remotely excited about it as I was. Was there some sort of hayride trauma? Was there no pumpkins in that patch he went to?
Then I learned the hard, cold truth. He had never BEEN on a hayride to a pumpkin patch to pick out a pumpkin! The poor soul! I realized I needed to fix this pronto!
So I did, by making him pose for a picture, which I know he hates. And then we were off to find that perfect pumpkin!
And the ironic thing was that this wasn't the one. But Mark did get a good workout carrying this one around for me till I did find my perfect pumpkin, which was on the other side of the pumpkin patch. Thanks hon!
But after the pumpkin was found, brought back and safely stored in our vehicle for the ride home, we indulged in our new tradition of Corn Mazes! This is something that we never did as children, probably because they weren't really around much. But we discovered them last year and love it!
So, after several days traveling in the back seat of my car, the perfect pumpkin came home to sit on our front stoop, and within the first 24 hours was being nibbled on by squirrels. So it was then brought into our front hallway until we were ready for my husband's Halloween tradition, one I had never done myself.....
...... Carving a Pumpkin! Now, I know what you're all thinking, how could you get a pumpkin every Halloween since childhood and NOT carve it! Well, my mom did things a little differently. As she recently confessed, she wasn't so good with "the whole carving thing", but she is an excellent painter. So we painted faces on our pumpkins. Something that is fun as well, but not as cool as putting a candle in a carved pumpkin. So I was wicked excited to be shown how it's done.
Of course, the first thing I learned is the knives I picked out for the initial cutting-the-top-of-the-pumpkin-off were too dinky. So he went and got a big knife out of the cutlery drawer and we began. Well, he cut and I took pictures. But still, it was very exciting!
Once the top came off, the schmutz had to come out. Yeah, you heard me, schmutz. And my husband graciously gave me this job to do. I made him take pictures.
I found a flat ice cream scoop worked really well getting all the seeds out.
And then, as Mark put it, came the hardest part of the whole pumpkin carving experience, what to carve on the front! Now I deliberated long and hard about this one. I wanted my first pumpkin carving to be incredible. I wanted it to be a huge statement. I wanted the creativity of the season, the weather, the epitome of decorative gourd season to shine through with my carving of this decorative, well, gourd.
Even my cat Merlin had ideas on how to do this, which he vocalized quite loudly while I was sitting and thinking. Or maybe he wanted to have some treats which were right next to the chair I was sitting in. I'd prefer to think it was the first reason.
So this is what I came up with!
Don't get me wrong, I had an elaborate fall festival scene in my head, but Mark pointed out that, it being my first pumpkin carving ever, I should probably stick to straight lines and simplicity.
Then the fun part! Cutting out the eyes..... and nose...... and mouth......
.....till we got this! Isn't he beautiful?!? YES!
I was so excited I wanted to name him. But them Mark pointed out that he had already named it Squirrel Food, and since that's what it will become after today I guess that name fits!
You are beautiful Squirrel Food!
And you look wicked cool in the dark!
Happy Halloween/Samhain/CelebrateRedSoxWorldChampions Day!
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