jack-o-lanterns | The Flourishing Tree

The brave woman stood at the temporary sink, surrounded by children holding small pumpkins to rinse off and take home. Was she a teacher? A parent? A courageous volunteer taking part in an elementary school field trip to a pumpkin patch?

I didn’t stop to ask but drove carefully past the cluster of children and their pumpkins. I had come to the pumpkin patch because of nostalgia.

Driving through rural Virginia a few weekends ago, my husband and I passed several fields dotted with pumpkins. Those fields made me long for a proper pumpkin patch, and my bare porch begged for a few pumpkins. So I took my own field trip yesterday, a solo visit to a pumpkin “farm,” really a patch where someone else had already done the picking.

Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere

Cinderella’s stagecoach in the background?

I wandered around, taking pictures, enjoying the laughter of parents and children as they picked out their perfect pumpkins. I thought of Linus falling asleep in the pumpkin patch, waiting and hoping for the Great Pumpkin’s arrival. I kept my eyes open for the best pumpkins.

Someone had fun decorating old farm equipment for the season.

A wheelbarrow-full assortment of pumpkins and gourds

Even though the pumpkins had not grown right here, the working farm couldn’t have been too far away. There were a few goats resting in a pen, and several chickens scrambled around the pumpkin yard, frazzled by gleeful children yelling, “Mooooom! I want to catch the chicken! Chick! En! Catch the chick-en!”

Can you spot the chicken in this picture?

I guess by this point in pumpkin season, the chickens are ready for Halloween to come and go. They’ve also either gotten in some good sprint training or have found their own favorite hidey holes at the pumpkin patch.

Have you been to the pumpkin patch, farmers’ market or local grocery store to stock up on pumpkins? If not, there’s still time. The pumpkins (and the wagons) are waiting.

Our porch is no longer bare. We’re almost ready for trick-or-treaters (there’s candy still to buy).

This year will be a very different sort of Halloween for us. We’ve moved from a neighborhood with 60+ school-age children to one that has maybe four or five who are still the right age to trick-or-treat. At least there will be some pumpkin cheer on our porch to let the neighborhood kids know to stop by our house for treats. And the adults have already gotten into the Halloween spirit, leaving secret gifts at each others’ doors and putting up signs to say we have been “boo’d.”

A happy front porch, graced with pumpkins and a spattering of rain

We’ll keep our pumpkins as Thanksgiving decorations, but I always feel a bit odd about not carving a jack-o-lantern. My dad always carved one for us growing up, and maybe that’s part of the nostalgia that won’t let me skip buying pumpkins each Halloween.

How about you? Do you carve jack-o-lanterns—either simple or elaborate? Or do you keep your pumpkins whole to double as Thanksgiving decorations? What other ways do you, your family and your neighbors like to celebrate Halloween? However you celebrate, let me wish you and yours a very happy Halloween!

Whoooo’s ready for Halloween? This wise pumpkin concoction was part of the scarecrow exhibit at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. (That’s a doll climbing the tree, not a real person.)

My husband has accused me of being a Halloween scrooge, but I think it’s only because we have an overwhelming number of children in our neighborhood, and not all of them are polite about the Halloween candy we give out. Some grab as much candy as they can from our bowls, some of the older ones show up in no costume and still expect candy, and others show up before the sun has even thought about setting. Isn’t there some rule against trick-or-treating before dark?

So yes, I can get a bit grumpy this time of year. But I also love seeing the costumes and the gleeful looks on the kids’ faces as they come up to our porch. I especially look forward to seeing the children I know best and see day-to-day, because they’re usually so sweet and a little shy in their costumes. It’s nice to see the parents out strolling around with their children, and Halloween gives my husband and me a chance to at least wave to neighbors we don’t see all that often or know all that well. Plus, Halloween is one of those occasions when Facebook is more fun than usual for me, because I get to see costumes of far-flung friends and their children.

I was talking with a friend earlier today about Halloween. She’s a mom of four, and when they all lived at home, the family would decide on a theme each year and figure out how each one would dress to match the theme. They enjoy witches’ brew each Halloween (aka beef stew), and that’s a tradition that hasn’t gone away even though they’re mostly too old for trick-or-treating. She made Halloween creative and fun for the whole family, and even though they’re growing up, they still think of Halloween as time for family fun.

I loved Halloween when I was little. One neighbor rigged up lights and noises to pretend there was a scary troll living under the bridge to his house. Our immediate neighbors made homemade goodies and pretended that they didn’t recognize me, though I was the only red-headed kid anywhere nearby. Another invited the neighborhood kids over for apple bobbing and other Halloween fun. There was usually a carnival at school with a costume contest. My dad would carve a jack-o-lantern for us. My very creative mom made costumes for my brother and me.

I remember the best one she ever made. I had fallen in love with Greek Mythology and wanted to dress up as Athena. I wore draped white and purple cloth for my robe, and I’m sure I had a spear of some sort. But the pièce de résistance was the helmet my mom made for me. She made the most magnificent Greek war helmet out of cardboard and aluminum foil, and used red, shiny wrapping paper over foam rubber for the crest. It was the one year I won a costume prize at the school carnival. Continue reading →

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