Pumpkin Slime Means Fall Time

It's the time of year when we get to have our yearly rite of traditional vegetable mutilation and Funnest Ever Family Home Evening activity: The Carving of the Pumpkins. Let me educate you on the proper technique for this family adventure, just in case your skills are a little rusty:

First, you have to do it up right and go to the pumpkin patch to pick out your special pumpkin. It should really be the pumpkin patch run by the little old man who grows them in his backyard and has each one priced with a price gun sticker, but whatever you have nearby will do. Your pumpkin must reflect your personality and age appropriately.

And, luckily, they have wagons there so you can knock over all the piles of pumpkins and pretend you are a dump truck.

Then, you take them home and decide what kind of face you want on it. When the top gets cut off, you can say, gross, these stink! And you can also pull your own seeds out and yell, "Eww, Slime!" If you are doing it right, you should have your copy of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" on the DVD player for your little sister so she doesn't mess you up.

You can also get sad that dad won't let you use the sharp knife, but you can turn that anger to your advantage by hassling him for twenty minutes to carve your pumpkin NEXT. When they are all scooped out and cut up, you can dump the seeds into your garden and hope that more pumpkins will grow next year in your own yard. And then you find the little candles in mom's pantry and light up the neighborhood with really, really spooky pumpkins. I just love Halloween.