Enjoying Halloween Organically

Holidays (even the Hallmark-manufactured ones) are a time to celebrate the nuances and rituals of being a modern American. While Thanksgiving and Christmas are arguably my favorite holidays, I’ve always enjoyed Halloween, if only for the pumpkin carving (and dressing up like Where’s Waldo, of course). When I was a kid, my sister and I always carved pumpkins at my parents’ kitchen table, using those little orange-handled pumpkin knives they sell at drugstores. Amy always made some time-intensive design, like a cat on a witch’s broom, and I typically carved your basic run-of-the-mill pumpkin face. Over the years, my carving skills have grown along with my love for the ritual of pumpkin carving.

So, you can imagine my excitement when yesterday Ted, who usually hates Halloween (Communist, maybe?), proposed that we buy pumpkins and carve them yesterday evening. We decided it was only natural for two organic-philes to buy organic pumpkins, since my suspicion is that the pumpkin-farming industry probably uses a crapload of chemicals to produce all of those orange orbs each fall. I’m not sure where to find statistics on that, but you can be sure that the rows and rows of ripe pumpkins ready for plucking across America are probably the result of fertilizer and herbicide sprays. (Because we all know that Americans don’t tolerate any weeds in our pumpkin patches, now THAT would be Communist.)

So, Ted and I headed out last night and purchased two glorious pumpkins at our local Whole Foods, doing our part to support the organic Halloween pumpkin industry. My hopes for next year are that we can grow our own pumpkins in our garden, which would be even more sustainable, but this year it wasn’t meant to be. Here’s what we did with our pumpkins this year:

In case you haven’t guessed which one is mine, it’s the “Jack”-o-lantern:

I LOVE me some Nightmare Before Christmas, and it only felt appropriate to pay homage to one of my favorite movies. Now I just hope some raving idiot doesn’t decide to smash my pumpkin in the street, that would seriously hurt my feelings. I think I’m gonna rent Nightmare tonight, just to get in the spirit of things.