Carving Punkins

I know, I know: Halloween was almost a week ago. I've been meaning to post pictures of the amazing pumpkins we carved, but haven't gotten a chance until now.

We had a quiet night at home on Halloween (not a single Trick or Treater, or even a kid wandering by in a costume-- there's something about San Francisco that's just not normal!). And it wasn't quiet just because of the lack of children-- we (and especially Chris) were pretty intense & focused on the pumpkins we were carving.

Now, I have to admit, I'm usually quite the master of those little templates with the intricate designs you poke through onto the pumpkin & then carve out. I've made some masterpieces in my days-- but they always felt a little like cheating. So this year, I branched out and designed my own (with a little inspiration from the internet). I usually go for the cute, harvesty Halloween themes, but this year, I went with a creepy old pumpkin eating a frightened little pumpkin.

Chris, however, doesn't believe in templates, molds, or traditions for anything in life (he turns our family's Christmas sugar cookies into pipes, football players & demons. Yikes!). So, after about a half an hour of brooding in intense silence and furiously sketching ideas on paper, he came up with this pumpkin. It's hard to see in the picture (click on it for a better view), but it shows a man & a woman being startled by a knife-wielding psycho coming at them in the light of their flashlight.

We bought our pumpkins out of the back of a run-down van late Halloween afternoon (along with some cocaine & stolen computers! Sheesh!) for $5! What a rip off! I'm thinking of going back now & buying more for a buck each, and carving some Thanksgiving themed pumpkins. I just can't get enough =)