.JPG)
We are not really a Halloween type family. I'm not into fear as a cheap thrill, and I hope I can raise my children the same way. I do, however, love autumn. I'm always excited when the air starts to get colder and I get to pull out all those cute sweaters I found on clearance last spring. So here's my problem: I want to get into the autumn festivities, but I don't want to decorate for Halloween. I would love to carve pumpkins with my kiddos, but not jack-o-lanterns because I'm just not really happy about the symbolism. And here's my solution(s):
I found a great article in a recent Family Circle magazine that has solved my problem, partly. They showed several great ideas for turning pumpkins into, basically, candle holders. They don't have faces, scary or other-wise, just designs. I'm ready to give it a try this year. I will be celebrating the harvest and the amazing cycle of seasons that God has created, and teaching some great lessons to my children at the same time. (Of course, it's entirely possible that the only lesson I'll be teaching is that Mommy shouldn't try to play with knives or be creative, but we'll just see, won't we?)
Another fun thing my kids enjoyed last year was visiting a local pumpkin patch. Ours had a small farm as well, so they got to see donkeys and piglets and run around in the red Okie dirt getting filthy and (more importantly) tired. I highly recommend visiting a pumpkin patch if you have one in your area. It's really lots of fun for the little ones, and Mommy too.
(I was sad to discover today that all our rains this year washed out the crop at our local pumpkin patch. =( I'll have to try to find some little ones at the grocery store, I guess.)
For more ideas, check out the first edition of Scribbit's Winter Bazaar.
5 comments:
I agree with you totally about staying away from the ghoul of Halloween. I always say there is too much scary stuff in the world without creating it in my own home. I do like the Family Circle idea (saw it, too). I like the idea of using cookie cutters and a mallet to create the images in the pumpkin. I'm gonna try it this year.
We didn't do Halloween with our daughters. We would take them to church if they had some alternative or we would mostly go out to eat and to a movie, which was a big deal for them.
To this day, though they are grown, they want to go out to eat and see a movie all together on Halloween.
We would put out pumpkins and fall things like that, but not carve them or do jack-o-lanterns.
People considered us weirdos, but we didn't care, we felt what we did was right for us.
Yea, I'm not really a Halloween fan myself, but any excuse to get people together with creative ideas, right? :)
And that's about the cutest picture ever. . .
We dressed up the kids just for family. I never wanted to take my kids door to door. But we did make halloween candy and cookies for that day!
Jillian
I'm new to your blog, come visit :)
You really need to check out this website:
http://pumpkingutter.com/
I am always amazed at what this man does with pumpkins each year.
Post a Comment