Carving and Costuming

The Halloween obligations--I mean festivities-- continued (and hopefully concluded) on Wednesday, October 28th with pumpkin carving and costume-concocting. Parental interest in pumpkin carving has been waning over the past few years, but Jeff and I have always managed to carve one pumpkin apiece. This year we were feeling sort of worn out by both life and the lack of life and we didn't carve pumpkins at all, even though we had over twenty home-grown pumpkins to choose from. We didn't even feel bad about our unenthusiastic non-pumpkin-carving. In fact, it was a relief! Jay didn't feel like carving a pumpkin either, but Rose and Amber each carved two. Jay and I drew faces on a few pumpkins with a Sharpie and called it good. Jeff and I both helped the girls by cutting the tops off of their pumpkins. 

On Wednesday night, the church youth put on a Halloween carnival for the kids in the church parking lot. That meant we had to assemble costumes! Continuing my Halloween-Scrooge-y-ness, I declared that we would not be buying new costume supplies this year, and told the kids to figure it out with what we had around the house. Jeff brought home several strips of multi-colored butcher paper from school to supplement our costume box, and the kids selected their personas. 

Amber had the most complex, evolving costume dream, and I did my best to make it happen for her. It started as a simple snail a few weeks ago, and picked up steam for the rest of the month, and I have to admit, she created quite the creepy combo. By costume-assembly-time on Wednesday, she wanted to be a Snail-Sauron-Jack-in-the-Box. I wrapped a backpack in orange paper, drew snail-shell-ish swirls on the sides, and taped a tail of green paper-slime coming out the bottom. I did her hair in high braided ponytails to look like snail-antennae. 

She donned a white dress and ten origami paper claws that Jay and Rose made a few weeks ago (evil wizard Sauron from Lord of the Rings has long gross fingernail-claws). The Jack-in-the-Box idea never made it into the actual costume--the original idea was to use a box as the snail shell, so she could be both a snail and a Jack-in-the-Box. A backpack was easier to put on her shoulders. As she pulled on her costume, Amber couldn't resist adding ballet shoes, a necklace, and a crown. Her final official costume was a Snail-Sauron-Jack-in-the-Box-Ballerina-Queen.

Rose dressed up as a “medieval traveler,” inspired by rangers in one of her favorite fantasy book series. Jay, employing his quirky wit, told me a different costume title every time I asked. Eventually I was able to condense his convoluted costume explanations into one three-letter word: SPY. Jay loves his clever games. Dressing in a costume myself never even occurred to me until we were at the church where many adults were decked out in fun costumes. Thanks to the health guidelines, I was wearing a mask, so that had to count for something!

The church carnival was cute, with four or five stations with games for kids to play to win candy. The kids ran around the parking lot, excited to be with friends in costumes. The adults felt the same, and we milled around chatting, bemused by the first church Halloween activity ever to condone mask-wearing. Eventually, we retreated to the car to wait for Jeff, who was Being Social. Since that’s ridiculously rare, I did not even tell him the rest of us were freezing and ready to go home. We just sat in the car and waited while he chatted. I felt proud of him, haha. In spite of my attempts at verbal restrictions, Amber managed to eat TOO MUCH candy, and by the time we got home, she was buzzing around the house like a little Pop Rock. 

Since there will be no trick-or-treating on October 31st due to the pandemic restrictions, Halloween is basically over for the year! Happy dance! All we have to do is watch It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and maybe make green witch finger cookies if I’m feeling extra charitable. Whew! 

Carving, round one.

Our very dead garden after last weekend's deep freeze.

Witch socks on my run!

Jay the spy.

That decorative pillar cast mottled shadows on Amber, so we had to scoot forward so everyone was equally lit.

Profile pic.

Jay the spy

Rose the medieval traveler.

Amber the snailsauronjackintheboxballerinaqueen.

I wrote it on the back of her shell so she didn't have to remember it.

Jeff wore his favorite headgear.

Removing pumpkin tops: round two.

Jeff, helping pop a carved piece out of Rose's pumpkin.

The pumpkin family!

The photo booth at the church--it was a bit too dark for a picture when we arrived.

Eating candy through her mask.

Hanging out in the car. My glasses were off because my mask fogged them up impossibly in the cold night air.

SUGAR RUSH!

This morning Jeff sent this picture from his classroom, captioned "Ready for Zoom!"

Jeff doesn't take selfies often, but when he does, it's creepy-awesome.