Carving out traditions...

On Saturday night, I threw a somewhat impromptu pumpkin carving party. I say somewhat impromptu because I was hemming and hah-ing as to whether I should continue what has become a tradition for my children each Halloween. As you know, I am a bit of a holiday nut, and Halloween is one of my favourites. I have thrown such a party for quite a few years now, and my kids have come to rather expect it. My hesitation stemmed to my fighting the feeling of "Can I be bothered?" and has it just become a habit... that now that the boys are getting older, is really worth the effort? Well, in a word, YES!! You see, I still have a happy-go-lucky little girl who has not experienced as many of these parties as her now somewhat disinterested brothers have. How fair is it to her to let their jaded-ness deprive her of some good, Halloween fun? Besides, making memories is always worth the effort!! How many times have we resisted entertaining, only to discover that once we are in the midst of it, we actually have a lot of fun ourselves??!! Well, Saturday night was just one of those nights as I hosted the friends I know to be easy, fun guests...ones who are always up for some of my cornball ideas, and who make me feel that hosting them is well worth the effort!!

So, herein lies the formula for hosting a pumpkin carving party of your own. Although some will definitely take a more creative and elaborate stroke to pulling one off, my formula is low-key, relatively easy, and won't drain your entertaining budget!! I have spoken before of my need to keep entertaining simple and fun. While I certainly have the capabilities to throw a dinner party where I provide each and every course, that is just not my thing at this stage of my life. My entertaining usually includes our own children, and those of our friends. We do not have family anywhere nearby, so to pawn our kids off on doting grandparents for a night is just not a reality for us. So therefore, I entertain in a way that is as stress-free as possible and in a way that even I can relax and have fun. So far, no complaints!!!

First off, for my carving party, I stocked up on enough pumpkins for my kids, hubby and me. I always get my guests to bring their own, and most importantly, I have them clean out their pumpkins beforehand to cut down on the mess in my house, and so that we can get to the fun part of carving our masterpieces right away! I am also a big invitation girl. I absolutely love stationery of all kinds, so a great invitation to any event I host is very important to me. In this case, I used the finger invitations that I bought as a kit (see above) from Martha Stewart's collection at Michael's . I have always wanted these, and I figured they would be a great decoration for my guests to keep for years to come. On this occasion though, because I decided rather late in the game to have the party. Thus, I simply called my guests with the invite, and gave them the fingers as a souvenir of sorts...

Of course, any good party has to have food, so I decided to make my brother's famous Mulligatawny soup, which is the most delicious soup I have ever eaten. I also made Taco soup, which is Tina's recipe that I nabbed from her wonderful blog. It made a ton of soup, thus I have some leftovers frozen in my freezer for some busy week-night. I unabashedly accepted offers of food contributions from my guests; so one brought a delicious cajun dip for nachos and pretzels... along with drinks for the kids. Another guest brought rolls and an amazing gooey, buttery pumpkin cake with whipped cream (which we inhaled like vultures), and another friend brought a party-sized pizza for the kids. I simply (well, not that simply) prepared my soups the same day, and also managed to make the kids each their own white-chocolate ghosts on a stick (with some help from my two youngest) that I make each year from a Martha Stewart recipe....soooo easy and yummy!!! Add to that some roasted pumpkin seeds I made, and we all were left with full stomachs, ready to begin the "arduous" task of carving some fancy pumpkins.

The kids threw themselves into the task, as did a couple of the parents...while the rest of us ended up talking too much to even get started carving. My friend Krissy, was a little tired from her busy week, and decided to sit the carving out ...she was looking really tired!!!

Of course, I dragged out all my remaining Halloween decorations and even decorated the back deck in case the older kids wanted to hang out there...unpestered by the little ones. I decided we needed some Halloween lighting on the deck, so I removed the umbrella from the center of the table, and sunk a discarded birch tree into the hole and the kids and I decorated it. It was quite a feat to make it fit...Krissy helped me saw off the excess branches the night before, and while trying to break them off, she actually fell backwards onto her behind!! Of course, I could barely help her up for laughing, but luckily she is a good sport who recognizes the importance of sacrificing for great decor!!!! I am actually quite proud of this idea...I thought of doing it this summer, but never got around to it till now...

Here is the annual picture I take of the results of our carving efforts. I love looking back at the pictures from year to year to see how the kids have grown. They were quite proud to stand behind their works of art, and even happier when Krissy pulled out some sparklers to cap off the night!!! A good time was had by all, and even my friend Janet's baby tried to stay awake as long as he could...carving his own pumpkin earler in the evening tuckered him out!!!

All in all, it was a great evening, and we can all scratch carving pumpkins off our to-do list for the week!! Happy Halloween!!!!!