Sharpie Jack-O-Lanterns Today to Cut Oct. 31

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Our family carves at least one pumpkin and sometimes several, but naturally this has to wait until within a day or two of Halloween so the pumpkins don’t begin to decompose. Since the kids love to create the toothy Jack-O-Lantern faces, we go ahead and draw the faces using indellible ink pens. We have a couple of weeks to enjoy the drawn-on faces and then we use them as our patterns when we finally carve the faces on Halloween.

I’ve found that having the “Sharpie Faces” doesn’t diminish the fun of the actual pumpkin carving at all. We would still have had to mark the features to trace while carving, and this allows us to really see how our pumpkin is likely to look when it’s cut. These models here won’t win any awards for originality, but we do get to enjoy the thrill of creating the Jack-O-Lantern faces twice; once in ink and once with the carving tools.

A Birmingham Dad of three recently shared his family’s ritual for pumpkin carving. After the last feature is carved, they turn off all the lights in the house and light the candle that goes inside the pumpkin. Then he carries the pumpkin and leads the parade from the kitchen to the front door step while the kids provide the spooky ghost noises. Thanks, Todd, for the idea!

BirminghamMom tip: Save your candle stubs to use inside your pumpkins during Halloween; just be sure to place them in a secure base such as a small tin or a glass jar and not let them burn lower than 2″.