published on the internet Oct 31st, 2009
THIS IS A HALLOWEEN POST! Happy Halloween! It is the most wonderful time of the year! Here is a song I learned in French class about Halloween when I was a kid that I have never ever forgotten. It’s called C’est L’Halloween. Any other Canucks remember this or learn it too? Was it strictly a Canadian thing? In any case, you need this song in your life:
This year, I dressed up as a Lady Gaga fan to hand out bags of chips to demanding children wearing costumes. I don’t want want to say I went all out, because, well:
I didn’t. Mostly because I didn’t want to upstage the pumpkins. In the Summers’ household, pumkin carving is a time to GO BIG OR GO HOME. Here are some pumpkins from years past:
From left to right: Shaun (from Shaun of the Dead), Nosferatu ascending the stairs and zombies from the cover of the Dawn of the Dead remake. These are all my pumpkins, as my sister was out of the country at the time. But THEN! My sister came back, and last year we carved pumpkins together and it was magical. I did Karen Cooper from Night of the Living Dead:
And then she outdid me with The Joker:
In a sad twist of fate, my Karen Cooper pumpkin rotted and exploded before I ever got the chance to put it out. This year, after some extensive perusing of The Internets, Megan decided she wanted to do the cheshire cat from American McGee’s Alice:
And I decided to do Ash (Bruce Campbell) from The Evil Dead:
I got my pattern from zombie pumpkins (I love zombie pumpkins!) and I do not know where my sister got hers from and it’s too late to ask her. Anyway, the pattern she printed wasn’t clear enough, so she redrew the WHOLE THING BY HAND, which took a day. And then she started punching out the pattern which took the better part of another day. And then one more day to complete it. We take this pumpkin carving stuff seriously, folks. Or she does. I made fun of her the whole time she did it, what can I say.
Anyway, here are the cheshire cat and Ash in pumpkin form!:
Here is the detail on my sister’s pumpkin because it took her 500 years to carve and I figure I can give her a few seconds of facetime on my blog because I’m generous like that and also she carved the harder parts of my pumpkin for me when I started to cry:
WELL DONE, SISTER, if you are reading this. And finally, here is a clip from Hocus Pocus because your Halloween evening–nay, YOUR LIFE–will not be complete without one:
I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!
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publication date
Saturday October 31st, 2009 @ 10:45pm
466 words, 27 sentencesmeta stuff
categories: personal
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Comments (17)
WOW. Pumpkin carving is serious business. Dawn of the Dead remake! Ah, I love the director. James Gunn is awesome. And Nosferatu.. damn that movie is scary. I have mad appreciation for your pumpking carvings. Sister’s is amazing, but Ash couldn’t have been easy!
Hee, “Pumpkin carving is serious business” needs to be on a t-shirt! TY for the comment. :) My sister did the tough parts of Ash, so she had all the work this year, really. *shame*
BEST CLIP EVER.
(I’ve already commented on YOUR badassery, and that of your ~*pumpkins*~)
THAT MOVIE IS ONE LONG CLIP OF BEST EVERNESS!
(~*~)
Here is how pumpkin carving went for us:
S bought a pumpkin. I was like, “Omg you got a pumpkin, I wasn’t going to bother this year!” Then…it sat on our living room floor. Then I had a GREAT idea for a pattern to carve, and we both agreed it was awesome. And now Halloween is over and the pumpkin is still whole on the living room floor.
OH WELL.
In retrospect, I am GLAD I didn’t carve it because omggg keeping up with the Summers girls would be IMPOSSIBLE.
That is a wicked song (and further evidence that Canadians rule) and some wicked pumpkins too!
I hope you had a great Halloween. What was the best costume you saw? I have to experience this stuff vicariously as no one in our condo – ever, in all the time we’ve been here – has come to the door on Halloween.
Those are WOW pumpkins! Mine is sadly uncarved… I was going to, but now I guess it’s too late. I will turn it into pumpkin soup.
Also… how do you do a Halloween post and not mention CANDY? Crazy!
Gorgeous, amazing pumpkins!!! You guys really do go all out. My favorite is Karen Cooper from Night of the Living Dead. Seeing your pumpkins right after going to the great Jack-O-Lantern Blaze makes me want to carve really neat cool pictures into mine.
Great Lady Gaga costume – what did the kids think? BTW, chips not candy? That’s kind of cool, although I do like candy :)
Thanks for the cool Halloween song (I’ve never heard that before) and the Hocus Pocus clip. I <3 Hocus Pocus! I saw it twice this year and missed the beginning both times :(
p.s. This year I'm just mining my pumpkins for seeds (to save my wrist for drawing), but next year …
Dude! Those pumpkins are KICK A##!
I have never seen anything like it!! Bravo to you both!
Also, Hocus Pocus, BEST MOVIE EVER!!! Love that little movie…*tear*.
Watched it with my kids on Halloween night :)
Also, Gryffin is determined to learn the Canuck song, hee hee, I have promised him I will VLOG it on the blog if he does :) He says Thank You :D
Oh my, of course I remember C’est L’Halloween! I assume it is only Canadians that get to learn it in French class, given that it is French. If that is so, I think it’s a big part of our national identity and should be featured in one of those “part of our heritage” commercials.
Those pumpkins are awesome. I don’t know how you guys get so much detail without defying the laws of gravity. I’ve only been able to make designs that involve large holes that are really far away from each other, such as a pumpkin Polkaroo.
Oooooh Caaaanadaaaa
Amazing! You guys are really talented!!! Way to pick off-beat subjects too. WIN!
I have to say that I am AWED by your pumpkin carving. I do not carve, so I can stand by and be in awe from way back here, without knives.
*awwwweeeeeee*
Holy crap! These are amazing. I would so hate to be in a contest with you guys.
Those are some awesome pumpkins, Courtney! I can definitely see why you’d want to keep costumes from upstaging them. :-)
Emily: OMG THAT IS A TRAGEDY. I hope you will at least gut it and eat the seeds?! Or you should invent a time machine and take your pumpkin with you and carve it. But I imagine it is rotted by now so maybe ignore this comment.
C.K.: Canadians totally rule. Costumes were not that great, in my town, tbh. There were a bunch of trick or treaters wearing a ridiculous amount of glo-sticks though! It was startling!
Tiffany: YUM PUMPKIN SOUP. And I knowwww huge oversight on my part.
sruble: Thank you so much!! I have a fondness for Karen too and I am super upset that she ended up exploding before she got put out on display. And in Canada (idk if this is a Canadian thing, but your comment gave me pause!) we have Halloween sized bags of ruffled chips. They are awesome. Hocus Pocus ROCKS. You should get the DVD so you never miss a moment!
tyecat: THANK YOU! I love this Hocus Pocus love that is in these comments. Also !!!! re: Gryffin!
Susan Adrian: THANK YOU. THE PUMPKINS ARE FLATTERED. SO ARE THEIR CARVERS.
Celise: Thank you!!!
Mindi: Hee, thank you!! :)
You are the pumpkin queen Courts!
Thank you, bb! :D