Unseasonably Warm: White Pumpkin and More Halloween Obsessions

Just a moment to show off the WHITE PUMPKIN Doodle Project.

Halloween is such a sickness for me. I can't stay away from the decor and I've really had to discipline myself. But at Target, they had these "craft pumpkins" that are fake that you can make things out of. I love that concept because I don't like the "pumpkin guts" that come from carving real pumpkins. And since it's still over 90 degrees all day, the idea of having a real pumpkin sitting around to decompose and rot in the sun isn't very appealing.

I grabbed one of the $4.00 pumpkins and over the course of a couple evenings goofing off on the couch, this is what I came up with. I'd love to make more, but I really have to lay off buying more Halloween stuff. It gets out of hand every year!

And this posting from the "Cultural Hall" talks about a few insights from the Utah and Mormon "culture" when it comes to Halloween.

Interesting. I never thought of it from a Mormon perspective. I’m born and raised LDS and I thought I was nuts over Halloween because I’m weird and artsy. I’m also nuts over it because it’s a holiday you don’t have to worry about balancing with “true meaning” like Christmas. With Christmas, we can get carried away, but then there are the lessons of remembering what it’s really about that make it hard to balance sometimes.

Another reason I love Halloween is because my mom hated it when I was growing up and I’m still rebelling I guess. It's not just that though. It's because Halloween is so much fun! I loved it and it was frustrating that she didn't. She was very vocal of how much she hated it and I found that weird since she loves scary movies and mysteries (and weirdly, I love Halloween but hate those kinds of movies and I don't like mysteries either! Tell me "who did it" ahead of time and I can enjoy the "journey" better. haha). Sure, it's easy to get frustrated with costumes, kids hopped up on sugar and all the expense, but like I said, it's so much fun!

However, I know my Mom wasn't the only one who Bah-Humbugged Halloween. In my teens, we had an ultra-orthodox Stake President (the leader over a collection of "wards". Think of it as a Superintendent over a School district) who one year that came down on members for celebrating Halloween over attending the Saturday adult session of Stake Conference one year. It took place on October 31st! Sorry – but that’s when you schedule Stake Conference for a week earlier or later. But he was a real killjoy and came down on people for "not having their priorities in the right place" when there was a low turn out for the meeting. He also came down on 18-19 year old youths who left their home wards for singles wards. He said “you’re supposed to be with your families.” He had a strange notion that every family was the Brady Bunch or the Waltons. He also didn't get the "leaving the nest" principle. Yeah, he had some things a little nuts himself, and not in the fun way. But I digress.

One thing I try to do every year is pick up a couple new Halloween decorations, despite the obsession to go nuts. But if we get a little bit each year, we can have quite the collection as getting all that stuff at once is too expensive. Some may say we have "enough" now, and that may be true for our smaller house. But when we have the Wickenburg house on all that land, we'll be glad we pick up a few things every year.

We didn't have to upgrade the spooky decor in our garage windows this year. I love the spider on the far left. I think I got that well before Mikelle was even born. It's made of corn husk and you wouldn't know by looking at it that it's falling apart and it's kept together with some black electrical tape! The witches on the right are made of corn husk too and one bit the dust, one doesn't have a broom anymore and only one is hanging on to her original broom. That's why these items are good for "window silhouette" effects.

Our caged pirate has been with us now, for oh, 6 or 7 years?

And our cemetery is growing nicely. If we can get 1 or 2 tombstones a year, it's shaping up to be a nice big graveyard!

But Alexander's appearance certainly says "It doesn't feel like Fall." :-(

And here's our friend Jack. He's kind of on his own on the other side of the driveway. Gosh, I think we got Jack 12 years ago?! But he hasn't aged a day.

And check out the shadow Jack leaves on the wall! Cool, huh?

New additions for this year:

And below, this is a small skeleton. I would love to have a bunch of these and do something really cool I saw in a picture (I'll include it below the skeleton), but at $13 a pop for one "smallish" skeleton, it's just going to have to be something that we can do after a few years after adding to the collection.