Halloween conversion

Last week's shopping list had an unusual item on it: "a few whole pumpkins, in different colours". Wasn't me, but I could figure what Pammy was up to. She's been bitten by the Halloween bug, following our driving holiday across America this time last year.

Before that we were two happy little Halloween grinches. In previous years, when kids came to our door trick or treating, we'd just say "sorry kids, we're not into Halloween, that's an American thing." Poor little things, they probably got more rejections than lollies, but that's the thing about Halloween here. It's not an Australian tradition... but it is catching on with the current generation of kids, including these two big old kids here at Amateur Land.

And so this is what Pammy did by our front
door. A few pumpkins laid on a bed of sugar
cane mulch, nasturtiums in a tin vase filled
with water – instant Halloween harvest scene! 

Now, the problem is of course that it is anything but harvest time here in Australia. We're Down Under, so it's spring and planting time. But if we as a nation can make a Christmas tradition of fake pine trees, fake snow etc I don't think a few pumpkins by the door is too outrageous a stretch of the imagination. The thing is, we two former Halloween grinches were utterly charmed by the way the good citizens of the USA turned Halloween into a month-long festival of home decorating, pumpkin carving, ghoul exhumations, ghost stories and general good-natured fun. Here's what I mean...

Typical harvest scene on the front steps of a
nice old house in Galveston, Texas.

In New York City, the ghouls get married,
the pumpkins are carved, all ready to party.

A town square in sleepy Greensboro, Georgia had one of these
pumpkin and haybale settings on all four corners of the square. 

A creepy old witch greets visitors to this house
in Charleston, South Carolina.

And in New Orleans, Louisiana the pumpkin
carvers were outnumbered by the ghosts and
ghouls, but these guys are still laughing.

Now, all of Pammy's pumpkin arranging by our front door would have been a perfectly good little 'We like Halloween now' gesture from us, but two days ago, at our local Woolworths supermarket, I spied a bin full of genuine Jack O Lantern pumpkins for sale, and this set Pammy and I on a whole new adventure, which will be detailed in my usual detailed detailing in the next blog posting to follow.

This was one of the smaller ones there, and
it cost about $8. To find out what happened
next, I'll be back real soon!