Tips for hosting a neighborhood Pumpkin Carving Party

Every year, we have a pumpkin carving party for our whole neighborhood on the last Sunday in October. Turnout is generally spectacular and surprises me every year. It’s a great opportunity for all of us to get together now that back-to-school mayhem has slowed down and the holiday craze hasn’t really geared up just yet.

Since my front yard has the best porch (and is conveniently located in the middle of our neighborhood), I inherited the co-hosting duties when I moved in a while back. We make it BYOB and BYOP (bring your own pumpkin) each year, and we make it a potluck so no one is unduly burdened with food costs. A few other tips if you’d like to create a similar tradition in your neighborhood:

1. Pick up a couple extra pumpkins just in case - some people may forget, some people may accidentally mess up irreparably, and some people may only come up with a killer idea after they’ve started carving a mediocre one in their pumpkin.

2. Recruit people to bring and share pumpkin carving tools (pencils, permanent marker, big spoons to scoop out goop, carving saws, kits from the store, etc, etc… )

3. If you’re at all artistic, be prepared to help some people out with the jack-o-lantern rendering. You’ll find parents, especially, may be shy when it comes to putting marker to pumpkin. Even having some printouts of ideas will be helpful for them.

4. If you’re averse to having some stray pumpkin plants growing in your meticulously maintained front yard, I would suggest laying down tarps or moving seed scraping activities to the driveway.

5. The biggest food hits at last year’s party were Ellen’s gross and disgusting deviled-egg eyeballs and Linda’s caramel apples.

6. If you’re going to make it a potluck, make sure to touch base with a few people in advance to ensure that you have your bases covered (and that not everyone is bringing black and orange cupcakes).

7. Check out the dollar store for some cheap goods - we picked up some decorations as well as some packages of plastic Halloween cups and paper plates for super cheap at the dollar store last year.

8. If you’re feeling particularly industrious, picking up a few cheesy prizes in advance (either some candy for the kids or some Halloween decorations for the adults) and get your attendees to compete in a carving contest (scariest, funniest, grand prize winner).

9. Pick up some votive or other small candles before the day-of - I guarantee that few people will think to bring them, and when it starts getting dark, the kids will be dying to see the jack-o-lanterns in all of their glory.

10. On a strange note, encourage your party-goers to pick up pumpkins in advance. Year before last, we had a strange pumpkin shortage in Austin. By the day of the party, there was nary a pumpkin to be found.

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