Halloween Pumpkins – Disney Meets Minecraft

A few weeks ago while wandering through Target and sipping on a Starbucks mocha, I ended up in the Halloween section. I was with the rest of my family or it would have never happened. I’d much rather roll my cart slowly through the food aisles and scour the home goods section for clearance deals, but those boys got sidetracked and pulled me into their madness. Paul is the biggest culprit, putting on various masks and trying to pretend he’s scary, but the rest of us just laugh and walk away from our starving actor just trying to get a break. After he got over the rejection he moved on to the pumpkin carving kits, specifically the book filled with Disney designs. Of course I have a soft spot for all things Disney, especially right now, but at the same time I wasn’t feeling all that thrilled with the six dollar price tag. Six dollars might not seem like much, but when these things just sit around year after year not getting used, six dollars is a lot of money and much better spent on more Starbucks. I reluctantly agreed to buy them, making him promise to actually carve pumpkins and use the sheets from the book. He promised. We bought the kit and it sat for about two weeks until I finally said it was time to go buy pumpkins and have a fun afternoon of pumpkin carving family time. Only I don’t enjoy it one little bit. I hate the mess, I’m not at all artistic, and I shouldn’t be trusted with sharp cutting tools. I psyched myself up, though, because I wanted everyone to participate. That’s a huge feat all on its own when you have two teenagers who would rather do almost anything other than carve pumpkins. Or so I thought.

I set the scene by spreading out a plastic cover over my table, laid out the tools and pumpkins, and played the Disney station on my Pandora app. Everyone came to kitchen with no argument and took a seat and the pumpkin butchering began. Well, first everyone was required to pick a Disney design to carve because I paid SIX DOLLARS for that book “kit”, gosh darn it. Nick expressed that he wasn’t all that interested in carving a Disney design, so I had a tough parenting decision to make at that moment. I could be rigid and demand he stick to the plan or I could be a little flexible and encourage his creativity, keeping him in the kitchen as long as possible to savor this family time. I shocked myself when I told him to do whatever he wanted to do. I’m so glad I did because when he finished he asked if he could carve another pumpkin and I eagerly said SURE and shoved another pumpkin in front of him as fast as I could before he changed his mind and ran off to his bedroom to play video games, Skype with friends, and send text messages to other ones. Turns out he’s one heck of a multitasker. So yeah, he stayed at the kitchen table and worked on a second pumpkin as Paul and Cody finished their firsts. In their defense, they actually did use the Disney stencils, which takes way longer than just carving out a random design on a pumpkin. Okay, I’ve blabbed on enough about that most wonderful Sunday afternoon. Now I need to show you the result of all their hard work. It’s certainly an interesting collection of jack-o-lanterns, but with this family I wouldn’t have it any other way. Let’s call it Disney meets Minecraft.