Pumpkins!

{Elisabeth's design and work}

{Also by Elisabeth}

It should come as no surprise, really, that I would be sentimental about something little like carving pumpkins. And I am.

Pumpkin carving was a favorite ritual of my family's growing up. My parents did a beautiful job of celebrating holidays in a very child-oriented way, and we all took great delight in decorating. There were a couple of years missed during college, but by the time I graduated, I was married, and I took a job as a bank teller (my degree was in music performance!) while my husband went back to school. It was at this job that I met my friend Rebecca, and we formed a work friendship. That fall, there was a mandatory pumpkin carving contest at our branch, and she and I collaborated on the pumpkins for the teller team. I remember ordering my Martha by Mail pumpkin carving kit with glee (it has served us so well every year since then), and we had a dinner of pasta, bread, and salad -- a tradition firmly set now.

That was ten years ago, and the beginning of what has been a never-missed tradition -- and a friendship that has been one of the most important in my life. So even though carving pumpkins is a small thing, a thing that most people do at some point and in some way each year, for me, it marks the beginning of this friendship. (I wrote about this last year, too. But with it being our 10-year anniversary, well, I just wanted to share more thoughts on it this year.)

This year, we started much earlier in the day than usual (we try to do it as close to Halloween as possible, so it's normally a week night), and James joined in the fun for the first time. He was so exuberant and so prepared! He dove right in with scraping his pumpkin, drawing its face (he knew just what he wanted), and even handling the chunky, child-sized serrated pumpkin knife on his own. I was across the kitchen preparing dinner, and before I knew it, he had finished carving his own pumpkin. What a joy! Here are more pictures of his process:

Tomorrow I'll be back with costumes! And I've decided to do NaBloPoMo again this year, so you'll be hearing a lot from me in this space once again!