Halloween 2014

Another year, another Halloween. Halloween was on a Friday this year. For trick-or-treaters, that's a plus. They can spend all weekend on a sugar high.  For pumpkin carving, it made me figure out how to break up my process and how to preserve them while/after carving.

This year, I seemed to be slightly better organized than some previous years.  I had my patterns selected a few weeks prior.  Printing them out did not present too great a challenge.  We did select our pumpkins only one week prior to the holiday, but that isn't an issue like trying to find a decent Christmas tree a week before Christmas.

On Tuesday, I placed my templates on the pumpkins and started punching the pattern into each one.  On Wednesday morning, I finished the transfer and connected the dots to make it clear.  When I cut open the tops to clean them out, I almost couldn't cut through the largest one.  It had an extra dense layer almost 1/8" thick.  Wednesday night, I started carving the simplest one but left the tiny cuts for another night to prevent the pumpkin from drying out.  And then I tried the crusty one.  In only a few cuts, I ended up breaking my new pumpkin carving knife.  I had my work...ahem...cut out for me.

Thursday night, I wanted to finish most of the work and not have last-minute panics.  I carved for 7 hours, 2 hours of it attributed to the crustiness of them.  I broke another knife, and had to make multiple cuts...one to break the skin/crust, then the actual cutting, for each line of the pattern.  Part of the Hello Kitty pumpkin broke from the aggressive cutting, and I had to make a repair.  I moistened them and sealed them for Friday afternoon.

Evan got his trick-or-treating in before it started to rain, and the number of kids walking around seemed a little low compared to other years.  The pumpkins turned out pretty good, and I always enjoy the compliments from the kids and their parents.  Until next year....