Jack-o-lantern or pumpkin? / trick-or-treaters

[GloryB]

I'm not a big Halloween celebrator ......but for the little kids/grandkids in the family, I do put out a few fun decorations that don't look scary. I'm not sure about carving a pumpkin. I'll wait and see what the parents want me to do. It is one of those holidays I'm not all that excited about.

[MidwesternBookWorm]

I actually enjoy carving pumpkins, and even though our kids are in their 20s and no longer living at home at this point, I still carve one each year. I'm not terribly artistic, but over the decades I've learned how to make them interesting.

I've thought a time or two about using the foam or plastic pumpkins instead; in fact, there was a blight that attacked the pumpkin crop hereabouts a few years back, and I wound up with no other choice that year. But it seemed wrong, somehow; I really just enjoy taking a one-of-a-kind thing that grew in a field and turning it into something that is eye-catching and interesting. Even if nobody came to the door trick-or-treating, I'd probably still carve a pumpkin each year, because there's just something so very evocative about the smell and the feel of the pumpkin under my hands, as I try to transform it from a simple gourd into something else entirely.

I think the ephemeral nature of a Jack O'Lantern is one of the things that appeals to me the most. I don't ever carve a pumpkin and display it in advance - it gets carved on the afternoon of the 31st, displayed that evening, and then pitched into the pile of leaves at the curb at the end of the night. I might spend as much time creating it as I do displaying it, and I suspect most years the result isn't seen by more than a few dozen people. But it gives me a sense of satisfaction nonetheless.

As to the numbers of trick-or-treaters we see each year, well, we've only been in this house a bit under a decade now, so I don't have a lot of historical data for comparison. Most years we generally see fewer than 50, I think. I usually get an assortment of candy types for the different kids that we see: the tiniest ones get suckers with the looped handles, the kind that are safe for even the smallest tykes, the slightly older ones that we recognize as living nearby get nice big chocolate bars, and the ones that come by later in the evening, the teenagers and the crowds that come in from other parts of town, well, we dole out the "4 lbs of assorted candies for $7" stuff to them. Probably wrong of us to play favorites, but I've never claimed to be politically correct. And anything that's left over at the end of the night goes with me to the office the next day, where it gets left in the lunchroom and generally disappears in under a day.

[SookieStackhouse]

I have some fake pumpkins for indoors, and a fake jack o lantern... I like to get a couple real pumpkins to put outside. I haven't tried to make a jack o lantern, I figure it would be a huge mess, I probably wouldn't do it right and I am afraid of sharp objects.