A pumpkin carving party

This year the husband and I decided we wanted to host a Halloween party. Not wanting to go the normal costume party route, we decided to do a pumpkin carving party. We figured that hosting it on the Friday before Halloween would be great and give people a chance to have their pumpkins out for a few days.

Yeah...not so much. The base housing had a different idea and decided that trick-or-treating was also going to be Friday night. Lamesauce. We went ahead with the party anyway and just doled out candy in between.

We went the hamburgers and hot dogs path and invited our guests to bring a side dish or dessert. We also supplied Nate's favorite spiced cider drink, Wassail. We did both a regular and spiked version. To differentiate between the two I decided to float oranges studded with cloves in the alcoholic one.


We bought a pumpkin for every family. At first we were going to place them under one of our trees like a mini pumpkin patch, but the bastard squirrels we're getting into our pumpkins less then a hour after they were set outside. So we had an inside pumpkin patch. Not quite as fun and glamorous, but it worked.


After some burgers the knives and drills came out. Yet you heard that right...drills. Lets just say power tools make the pumpkin carving that much more fun.

When all was said and done, we ended up with some really great pumpkins. It was a lot of fun seeing what everyone did and the different paths we all took to create our glowing artwork.

The Pumpkin "Pi" was my husband's doing.

We also had a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle courtesy of our neighbors. The one behind it was my drilled masterpiece. What can I say, I love drilling my pumpkins and I have to do one every year.


And you can't have carved pumpkins without the classic face.


All in all I'd say we had a great time and hopefully our neighbors and friends did as well. It was a great way to celebrate the holiday without having to dress up, which isn't everyone's cup of tea.

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Halloween. Christmas is quickly creeping up on us!